Question

Students at Smith Middle School submitted their votes to name the school's snake mascot. The results from one of the ballot boxes are shown in the table.

Name the Mascot
Name Votes
SSSneaky 12
SSSteve 10
SSSammy 4
SSStanley 9
SSStriker 5

If two ballots are chosen randomly one at a time from the ballot box, without replacing the first one, what is the probability that both ballots are votes for SSStanley?


A. 27/520


B. 81/1600


C. 9/200


D. 3/65

Answer 1

I have 3 questions similar to this and having a real hard time;(

Answer 2

To find the probability of each pull it would be a fraction of:
The total number of possible choices that fit your description over
The total number of possibly choices.

So if you had 3 blue balls and 2 red balls, and wanted the probability of picking a ball it would be 5/5 or 1. Because (duh) you'll always pick a ball. To pick a blue ball it would be 3/5 because 3 out of 5 of them are blue. If you put the ball back and drew again there would be the same probability, because nothing has changed. If you keep the ball it becomes 2 (started with 3 minus the 1 you're holding) / 4 (started with 5 minus the 1 you're holding.

When finding the probability of combined events like this you find the probability of each one using what I said above, and then multiply.