Question

Nick has 3 shirts: a white one, a black one, and a blue one. He also has two pairs of pants, one blue and one tan. What is the probability, if Nick gets dressed in the dark, that he winds up wearing the white shirt and tan pants? Show your work.

Answer 1

This is a probability question, because you're finding the probability of a certain outcome out of many possible situations.

The way to solve this is by simply multiplying the number of shirts by the number of pants: 3 shirts x 2 pants = 6 combinations, so the chance of getting the white shirt and tan pants combo is 1 in 6, or 1/6.

Here's why: for each of the three shirts, there are two pants that could be picked: the blue and the tan.

               White shirt                  Black shirt                     Blue shirt
              /                \               /                \                   /              \
        1. blue           2. tan       3. blue         4. tan         5. blue        6. tan

Therefore, the possibilities are a white shirt with blue pants, white shirt with tan pants, black shirt with blue pants, etc., which gives you 6 different combos.

Thefore, the probability of getting that specific combination is 1 / 6.


Hope this helps