There are four marbles in a bag with the colors red, white, blue, and green. John pulls out one marble and tosses a coin. How many elements are there in the sample space?
A. 2
B. 4
C. 8
D. 16.
There are 4 choices for the marble, and 2 choices for the coin toss (heads or tails). By the multiplication principle, the sample space has $4 \times 2 = 8$ elements, so the answer is $\boxed{\textbf{(C) }8}$.
To determine the elements in the sample space, we need to consider two separate events: pulling out a marble and tossing a coin.
Event 1: Pulling out a marble
Since there are four marbles, there are four possible outcomes:
1. Red marble
2. White marble
3. Blue marble
4. Green marble
Event 2: Tossing a coin
When tossing a coin, there are two possible outcomes:
1. Heads
2. Tails
To find the total number of elements in the sample space, we need to consider the number of outcomes of each event and multiply them together.
Since there are 4 possible outcomes in Event 1 and 2 possible outcomes in Event 2, the total number of elements in the sample space is 4 * 2 = 8.
Therefore, the correct answer is C. 8