- #1
Xyius
- 508
- 4
Homework Statement
You walk into your class the first day of classes, and you notice that
there are 30 men and 20 women in the class already. Let's suppose you decide to choose
two people from the class to be your study partners.
If you choose your study partners at random, and given that at least one of your
study partners is a woman, what is the probability of the event E that both of them
will be women?
A. 0.3167
B. 1.9%
C. 0.2405
D. 0.1901
Homework Equations
In my Solution
The Attempt at a Solution
This seems like a simple problem but I cannot seem to get the numbers available as choices.
My logic is is, W represents the event that you have picked a woman, and E represents that both of your partners will be women then.
[tex]P(E|W)=\frac{P(E \cap W)}{P(W)}[/tex]
So the numerator can simplify to..
[tex]P(E|W)=\frac{P(E)}{P(W)}[/tex]
This is because if E occurs, then W must have occured.
So..
[tex]P(E)=\frac{\binom{20}{2}}{\binom{50}{2}}[/tex]
and
[tex]P(W)=\frac{\binom{20}{1}}{\binom{50}{2}}[/tex]
But this doesn't work because the ratio of these two (From the formula) gives a number larger than one. Where am I going wrong? Do I use Bayes theorem?