Of 47 plays attributed to a playwright 17 are comedies, 18 are tragedies, 12 are histories. If one play is selected random find the odds against selecting a tragedy.
18 of 47 are tragedies
31 of 47 are not
so, the odds against a tragedy are 31:18
To find the odds against selecting a tragedy, we need to determine the number of plays that are not tragedies and compare it to the number of tragedies.
The total number of plays attributed to the playwright is 47.
17 of those plays are comedies, 18 are tragedies, and 12 are histories.
The number of plays that are not tragedies = number of comedies + number of histories
= 17 + 12
= 29
Therefore, the odds against selecting a tragedy can be expressed as:
"Number of plays that are not tragedies : Number of tragedies"
or
"29 : 18"
To find the odds against selecting a tragedy, we need to determine the number of outcomes that are not tragedies and divide it by the total number of possible outcomes.
In this case, we know that there are a total of 47 plays attributed to the playwright. Out of these 47 plays, 18 are tragedies. Therefore, the number of outcomes that are not tragedies is 47 - 18 = 29.
To calculate the odds against selecting a tragedy, we divide the number of outcomes that are not tragedies by the total number of outcomes:
Odds against selecting a tragedy = Number of outcomes that are not tragedies / Total number of outcomes
= 29 / 47
So, the odds against selecting a tragedy are 29/47.
This means that for every 29 times a non-tragedy play is selected, there will be 47 possible outcomes in total.