While getting dressed for school early one morning, the light in Toni's bedroom burned out. Toni knew he had plenty of clean socks in his drawer, but none of them were matched. He had 24 white socks and 6 blue socks. What is the probabilty of Toni finding 2 white socks or 2 blue socks in the dark? White_____ Blue____

Question

While getting dressed for school early one morning, the light in Toni's bedroom burned out. Toni knew he had plenty of clean socks in his drawer, but none of them were matched. He had 24 white socks and 6 blue socks. What is the probabilty of Toni finding 2 white socks or 2 blue socks in the dark?     White_____          Blue____

MathMate · Answer

Probability of getting the first white sock out of 30 socks is 24/30 Probability of getting the second white sock out of the remaining 29 socks is 23/29 Since he needs a pair of white socks, both of the above events (steps) must succeed, for which the probability is the product of the two events, namely: P(WW)=(24/30)(23/29) You can figure the probability of getting a pair of blue socks P(BB) in a similar way.