A bag contains 12 pieces of fruit: 7 apples, 3 oranges, and 2 nectarines. Jonas is given a piece of fruit first and Beth is given one next. What is the probability that Jonas will get an orange and Beth will get an apple if each is handed a piece of fruit at random?

Question

anonymous · Answer

first compute the probability that jonas gets an orange
it is the ratio of the number of oranges to the total number of pieces of fruit

one more step after that

anonymous · Answer

@satellite73 it would be 3/12 then what?

anonymous · Answer

That is one BIG bag.

anonymous · Answer

then compute the probability that beth gets an apple "given" that jonas has an orange
we do this by thinking
there were originally 12 pieces of fruit, now there are only 11 (since jonas got one)
jonas got an orange, so there are still 7 apples in the bag

anonymous · Answer

therefore the probability that beth gets an apple "given" that jonas has an orange is 
$\frac{7}{11}$

anonymous · Answer

last step is to take these to numbers and multiply them together

anonymous · Answer

*two numbers

anonymous · Answer

ok so it would be 7/44 right?? @satellite73

anonymous · Answer

$$\frac{1}{4}\times \frac{7}{11}$$ yes you are right

anonymous · Answer

thank you @satellite73