Question

Tests by an independent auditing firm show that 50% of students in a certain school think that Algebra is the best course they have ever taken. Use the entire line of random numbers below to estimate the probability that a randomly selected group of five students will contain at least 3 Algebra lovers. Let the digits 1-5 represent a student who thinks that Algebra is the best course.

12024 55976 61475 70726 25408 62279 71874 03499 92659 26041

Convert your probability answer to a whole number representing a percent.

Answer 1

If the digits 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 represent a student who thinks that algebra is the best course, then the digits 0, 6, 7, 8 and 9 represent a student who thinks that algebra is not the best course.
Looking at each of the five digits in the first random number, there are 4 digits that are in the range 1 to 5 inclusive and 1 digit (a zero) that represents a student who thinks that algebra is not the best course.
By inspecting each of the remaining 9 random numbers we can find the number of students who think that algebra is the best course, as simulated by the random number.
A table can then be constructed as follows:

You can finish the table and then count the number of results where three or more students think that algebra is the best course. This number divided by 10 gives the value of probability required by the question.