North Suburban Mathematics League Name

Meet 2 – Juniors - Probability

October 28, 2010 School

1. A class has 14 boys and 11 girls. If three students are chosen at random without
replacement, find the exact probability that more boys than girls are chosen.

2. Rhoda is driving at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour. She glances at her
odometer and reads the mileage as 65102. What is the exact probability that the
odometer will turn to 65103 within the next 15 seconds after her first glance?

3. There are m distinguishable permutations of the seven letters in ALFALFA and n

n
distinguishable permutations of the seven letters in ALIMONY. Find .
m

4. The 20 faces of an icosahedral die are numbered 1 through 20. All outcomes are
equally likely. If each of six players rolls this die once, what is the probability
that at least two of them will roll the same number?
Round your answer to the nearest thousandth.

5. The faces of a standard cubical die are numbered 1 through 6. The faces of a
regular tetrahedral die are numbered 5, 10, 15, 20. A circular spinner’s face is
colored two-thirds blue and one-third red. The two dice are rolled and the
numbers are recorded and used to form a fraction. If the spinner comes up blue,
the numerator is the cubical die’s number and the denominator is the tetrahedral
die’s number. If the spinner comes up red, the numerator is the tetrahedral die’s
number and the denominator is the cubical die’s number. Find the exact
probability that the numerator and the denominator have no common factor other
than 1.

1 NSML 2010-2011 Meet 2 – Juniors - Probability

 Junior Contest—Meet 2 Name: _______________________
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SM Probability School: _______________________
L North Suburban Math League, October 26, 2011 ☐ Contestant ☐ Alternate

1. A standard cubical die is to be rolled until a 6 comes up. What is the probability
that at least 4 rolls are needed?

2. Three cards are to be drawn, without replacement, from a standard deck of 52.
Find the probability that all three are of the same color (red or black).

3. The six corners of a regular hexagon have coordinates ^2, 0h, ^1, 3 h, ^- 1, 3 h,
^- 2, 0h, ^- 1, - 3 h, ^1, - 3 h.
These corners are to be labeled with the letters P, I, R, A, T, and E, with the
requirement that no two consecutive corners be labeled with vowels.
How many satisfactory labelings are possible?

4. Each of 4 students is to write one of the letters C, H, E, M, I, S, T, R, Y on a card.

If these students choose their letters at random, what is the probability that at least
2 of them write the same letter?

5. Think of the word TENNESSEE as made up with Scrabble tiles.

If these 9 tiles are placed randomly in a row, some of the arrangements will contain
the word TENSE as 5 consecutive letters from left to right.
How many distinguishable such arrangements are possible?
 Junior Contest—Meet 2 Name: _______________________
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SM Probability School: _______________________
L North Suburban Math League, November 15, 2012 ☐ Contestant ☐ Alternate

1. Tim likes Martha, but he is shy. At a dinner guests are placed at a round table for
8. The guests are placed alternating females and males, but otherwise at random.
What is the probability that Tim is seated next to Martha?

2. To play BINGO a player is given a card with 24 numbers from 1 through 75

(and a free space in the middle). Numbers are drawn at random from 1 through
75, without replacement. Lester, the unlucky, claims he had a card in which 10
numbers were drawn and none were on his card. What is the probability of this
happening? Round you answer to four decimal places.

3. A baseball player’s batting average may be assumed to be the probability of his

getting a hit when he is batting. Suppose Mickey’s batting average is 0.300. If he
bats four times in a game, what is the probability that he will get at least one hit?

4. Suppose a company has 1,000 employees, 600 are male, and 750 are married. 450
of the male employees are married. If an employee is selected at random, what is
the probability that the employee is female or married?

5. Given a four-digit number for which the sum of the digits is 34, what is the
probability that the number is divisible by 11?
 Junior Contest—Meet 2 Name: _______________________
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SM Probability School: _______________________
L North Suburban Math League, November 14, 2013 ☐ Contestant ☐ Alternate

1. Twenty students take a test, and five of them get perfect scores. From the group of
twenty, how many groups of five are possible?

2. The probability that the temperature is above 70 degrees outside is 0.387, the
probability that it is raining is 0.148, and the probability that it is both above 70
degrees outside and raining is 0.036. If it is raining, find the probability that the
temperature is below or equal to 70 degrees.

3. How many five-digit numbers formed using each of the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 once
are evenly divisible by 4?

4. Sheila is playing a game in which she rolls three standard six-sided dice, two of
which are red and one of which is blue. If the sum on the red dice is at least nine,
then what is the probability that the sum on all three dice is at least thirteen?

5. If x, y, and z are each randomly chosen numbers between 0 and 1, what is the
probability that x + y + z 1 1?
 Junior Contest—Meet 2 Name: _______________________
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SM Probability School: _______________________
L North Suburban Math League, October 30, 2014 ☐ Contestant ☐ Alternate

1. A deck of cards has 4 suits—clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades—and 13 cards

of each suit—Ace, 2, …, King—for a total of 52 cards. Two cards are randomly
selected from the deck. The first is turned over and it is the Ace of spades. What is
the probability that the second card is also an Ace?

2. If a die is rolled it may have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 showing, and each outcome is equally

likely to occur. If three dice are rolled, what is the probability that the sum of the
three numbers showing is at least 15?

3. Suppose the Cubs and White Sox are playing in the World Series. The series can
have up to 7 games and the team that wins four games is the champion (and the
teams stop playing as soon as one team wins four games). Assume that in any
single game, each team is equally likely to win. If the Cubs win the first two games
(this is a fantasy, of course), what is the probability that the White Sox will win the
series?

4. It is also known that 30% of all people own dogs and, independently, 40% of all
people own cats. In a survey, 60% of people who only own dogs say they need
a pet hair vacuum cleaner, 75% of people who only own cats say they need one,
and 90% of those who own both a dog and a cat say they need one. Pete buys
a vacuum cleaner that is specifically designed for cat and dog hair. What is the
probability that Pete owns cats (with or without dogs)? Answer as a decimal to the
nearest thousandth.

5. There is an election with three candidates, A, B, and C.  Each candidate is equally
likely to receive a vote from any given voter.  Mr. Jones and Mrs. Smith have just
voted, and are about to be interviewed by a reporter covering the election.  Mr.
Jones tells the truth three out of every four times he answers a question, and lies
a quarter of the time at random.  Mrs. Smith tells the truth four times out of five,
randomly telling lies one-fifth of the time.  If the reporter asks each whether he or
she voted for A, what is the probability that both will say “yes?”
 Junior Contest—Meet 2 Name: _______________________
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SM Probability School: _______________________
L North Suburban Math League, November 12, 2015 ☐ Contestant ☐ Alternate

1. From a standard deck of 52 cards (4 suits: clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades; and
13 values: Ace through King in each suit), what is the probability of selecting two
cards at random and they are a pair (both having the same value)?

2. Given 3 quarters and 4 dimes, supposed they are randomly placed in a row. What
is the probability that the end two coins are both dimes?

3. According to an insurance company’s actuarial tables, the probability of a 35 year

old living to 75 is 0.57, and the probability of a 45 year old living to 85 is 0.43. If
Tom is 35 and Alex is 45, what is the probability that at least one will be alive in
30 years?

4. Lily is 3 years old and trying to learn her right shoe from her left. Her parents
claim she is wrong at least 80% of the time. If the choice is random (and equally
likely to put, say, the right shoe on the left foot) what is the probability that her
parents are correct for ten tries of putting on her shoes? That is, when she puts her
shoes on 10 times what is the probability that she will be wrong at least 8 times?

5. A standard pair of dice (one through six) are rolled four times. What is the
probability that there will be at least 2 “sevens” (the sum of the pair)?
 Junior Contest—Meet 2 (p. 1 of 2) Name: _______________________
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SM Probability School: _______________________
L North Suburban Math League, November 16, 2016 ☐ Contestant ☐ Alternate

1. In a city, 60% of the population subscribes to the Tribune newspaper, 50% to

the Times newspaper, and 40% to the Post newspaper. In the same city, 30% of
the population subscribes to both the Times and the Tribune, 20% subscribe to
both the Times and the Post, and 10% subscribe to the Tribune and the Post.
Nobody subscribes to all three newspapers. What is the percentage of people who
subscribe to exactly one newspaper?

2. Alicia is about to give a bank teller a wad of 15 bills consisting of some ones, some
fives, some tens, and some twenties. It is possible for some denominations to be
missing; for example, the teller might get 8 ones, 6 fives, 0 tens, and 1 twenty. How
many possible combinations of bills could the teller receive from Alicia?

3. You are going to be dealt a hand of 6 cards from a deck of 52 playing cards with the
usual 4 suits and 13 ranks. Assume that all possible hands are equally likely. What
is the probability that you will receive at least 5 cards of the same suit? Express
your answer as a percentage, rounded to the nearest hundredth of a percent.

© Copyright 2016 North Suburban Mathematics League

 Junior Contest—Meet 2 (p. 2 of 2)
N
SM Probability
L North Suburban Math League, November 16, 2016

4. An NBA playoffs series is a sequence of games between two teams that is “best
of 7.” That is, the first team to win 4 games wins the series. There can be no ties
for any game. According to NBA history, teams that have won 3 games and lost 1
game out of the first 4 games
a) have won the series 80% of the time;
b) have won the series 65% of the time when they’ve lost the 5th game.
Given the information in a) and b), determine the percentage of teams that have
won 3 games and lost 1 game out of the first 4 games and have won the 5th game.
Round your answer to the nearest percent.

5. Mr. Wiggum is fond of donuts and random sampling. Suppose he buys a box
of donuts, of which c are chocolate, j are jelly, and g are glazed. Suppose also
that each time he selects a donut from the box, he grabs one at random and eats
it entirely, with each of the donuts being equally likely to be chosen. Also, Mr.
Wiggum is so fond of donuts that he eventually eats all of the donuts in the box.
What is the probability that the first type of donut to be completely eaten by Mr.
Wiggum is chocolate and the second type of donut to be completely eaten is jelly?
Express your answer in terms of c, j, g.

© Copyright 2016 North Suburban Mathematics League

 Junior Contest—Meet 3 Name:
Probability School:
North Suburban Math League, December 7, 2017 Contestant Alternate

1. Don is a basketball player. When Don shoots a pair of free throws, he hits the first one
60% of the time. If he hits the first free throw, then he hits the second one 80% of the
time. Overall, he hits the second free throw 50% of the time. If Don is about to shoot
a pair of free throws, what is the probability that he will miss both shots? Give your
answer as a percent.

2. West High, East High, North High, and South High each sent a 3-person team to a
math competition. The students all forgot to write their school names on their exams,
leaving the judges in a predicament when it came time to return them. If the judges
randomly sent 3 tests to each school, what is the probability that all four schools got
all of their own students’ exams back? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

3. Robert is rolling three standard, fair six-sided dice, two of which are purple and one of
which is red. What is the probability that the red die shows a larger number than the
sum of the numbers on the purple dice? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

4. Aaron has a six-sided die on which five sides are blank and the final side has a star.
Aaron’s die is weighted so that the probability of getting at least one star in 10 rolls
1
is . Find the probability of at least one star coming up if Aaron’s die is rolled 15 times.
5
Give your answer as a decimal rounded to the nearest thousandth.

5. Consider the permutations of all the letters in the word MATHEMATICS. Such a permu-
tation will be called hungry if it contains the words EAT and HAM (both as three-letter
strings). For example, MHAMSEATICT is hungry, but both the strings HAMTEMATICS
and MTHAEATICSM are not hungry. Given that a randomly selected permutation of
all the letters in MATHEMATICS contains the word EAT, what is the probability that
this permutation will be hungry? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

c 2017 North Suburban Mathematics League
 Junior Contest—Meet 3 Name:
Probability School:
North Suburban Math League, December 13, 2018 Contestant Alternate

1. Cameron flips two fair coins and rolls a fair, standard six-sided die. What is the proba-
bility that the number of coins landing with heads up plus the number of dots face-up
on the die equals 7?

2. Two numbers x and y are selected uniformly at random (with replacement) from the
set {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10}. What is the probability that |x − y| ≤ 2?

3. A matching pair of socks is defined as any two socks of the same color. Abby, Bob, and
Chris are three siblings who share a sock drawer that contains 6 white socks and 4 red
socks. Six socks are chosen from the drawer at random. What is the probability that
the siblings can divide up these 6 socks so that each of them has a matching pair of
socks?

4. Ten fair, standard six-sided dice are rolled. Given that the sum of the values on the
dice is even, what is the probability that the product of the values on the dice is also
even? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

5. Isabela writes 10 ones in a row, and randomly writes +, −, ×, or ÷ with uniform prob-
ability in the space between each pair of ones, such as:

1 + 1 × 1 × 1 − 1 − 1 ÷ 1 + 1 × 1 ÷ 1.

What is the probability that the resulting expression (evaluated using the standard
order of operations) is equal to 8? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

c 2018 North Suburban Mathematics League
 Junior Contest—Meet 2 Name:
Probability School:
North Suburban Math League, October 30, 2019 Contestant Alternate

1. Hal and Ween are trick-or-treating together, and each of them rings each doorbell at
most once. Hal rings the doorbell 30% of the time, regardless of what Ween does. Ween
rings the doorbell 70% of the time, regardless of what Hal does. What is the probability
that a specific house has its doorbell rung exactly once when Hal and Ween go to the
house together? Give your answer as a percent.

2. Two dice are rolled. One is a fair six-sided die whose sides are numbered from 1 to 6
and the other is a fair eight-sided die whose sides are numbered from 1 to 8. Given that
the sum of the numbers rolled is a prime number, what is the probability that the sum
of the numbers rolled is at least 10? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

3. An integer between 10 and 20, inclusive, is chosen uniformly at random, and then a
positive divisor of that number is chosen uniformly at random. What is the probability
that the divisor is even? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

4. A 7-character secret code contains 3 uppercase letters (A through Z) and 4 numeric

digits (0 through 9), all chosen uniformly at random. What is the probability that the
code is a palindrome (i.e., it reads the same forward and backward)? Give your answer
as a reduced fraction.

5. Froggy starts on a number line at x = 0 at noon. Each hour, he jumps in the positive
x-direction, randomly choosing a distance of either 1 or 3. If he ever lands on x = 8,
he turns into a prince. What is the probability that Froggy turns into a prince by
midnight? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

c 2019 North Suburban Mathematics League
 Junior Contest—Meet 3
Probability
North Suburban Mathematics League, December 2, 2020

1. A standard deck of cards has 52 cards: thirteen ranks (Ace, 2, 3, . . . , 10, Jack, Queen,
King) in each of four suits (hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs). The deck is arranged
in random order, and cards are flipped from the top. Given that the first two cards
flipped are the same rank, what is the probability that the next two cards are the same
rank as each other, but are of different rank from the first two? Give your answer as a
reduced fraction.

2. Eleven tiles, each printed with one letter, can be arranged to spell out the word
“PROBABILITY”. The tiles are placed in a bag, and three tiles are selected at random,
without replacement. What is the probability that those three tiles can be arranged
into a palindrome, where a palindrome is defined as an arrangement that reads the same
forwards and backwards? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.
(For example, “LOL” is a three-letter palindrome, but could not be formed with the
tiles in this problem because there is only one “L”.)

3. At Pepper Pizza (a pizzeria), every order consists of one pizza and one drink. 40% of
orders with mushrooms on the pizza have root beer as the drink, and 64% of orders
without mushrooms on the pizza have root beer as the drink. Furthermore, 25% of
all orders have mushrooms on the pizza. What is the probability that an order that
does not have root beer as the drink does have mushrooms on the pizza? Give your
answer as a reduced fraction.

4. Luna has 90 socks in a drawer, which are all identical except that some are blue and
some are bronze. Luna has more blue socks than bronze socks. When Luna randomly
pulls out two socks (without replacement) from the drawer, the probability that they
64
are the same color is . How many blue socks does Luna have in the drawer?
89

5. Sarai and Cressida are two players on the Beans, a local hockey team. If both Sarai
and Cressida play in a given match, the Beans win 65% of the time. If Sarai plays and
Cressida does not play, the Beans win 45% of the time. If Cressida plays and Sarai does
not play, the Beans win 50% of the time. If neither plays, the Beans win 20% of the
time. There is a 75% chance that Sarai will play in a given match. Independently, there
is a 90% chance that Cressida will play in a given match. Based on this information,
what the probability that the Beans will win their match on Friday night? Give your
answer as a percent.

c 2020 North Suburban Mathematics League
 Junior Contest—Meet 3 (p. 1 of 2) Name:
Probability School:
North Suburban Mathematics League, December 9, 2021 Contestant Alternate

1. April 1, 2021 was a Thursday. Given that the month of April has 30 days and that
someone born during April is equally likely to be born on any particular day of the
month, find the probability that someone with a birthday in April had their birthday
fall on a Friday during 2021. Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

2. Jazzmine and Alethia are playing a card game with a standard deck of 52 cards. In
the game, each player draws two cards from the deck, and then five cards from the
remaining deck will be turned face-up. Jazzmine draws two Aces as her secret cards,
but doesn’t know what Alethia’s secret cards are. The first three cards turned up are
a 2, a 6, and an Ace. From Jazzmine’s point of view, what is the probability that one
of the next two cards turned face-up will be an Ace? Give your answer as a reduced
fraction.

3. A 12-inch stick is randomly broken in two places such that each of the three resulting
pieces has a positive integer length in inches. What is the probability that the three
resulting pieces can be put together to form a triangle? Give your answer as a reduced
fraction.

4. Gummy penguins come in five flavors: lemon, strawberry, grape, apple, and orange.
How many different bags of 15 gummy penguins can be made that have at least one
gummy penguin of each flavor?

OVER −→

c 2021 North Suburban Mathematics League
 Junior Contest—Meet 3 (p. 2 of 2)
Probability
North Suburban Mathematics League, December 9, 2021

5. During a Black Friday sale at a department store, several customers bought both a
computer and a tablet. The store only stocks three brands of computer and tablet:
Brand A, Brand B, and Brand C. Of these customers, 40% bought a Brand A computer,
35% bought a Brand B computer, and 25% bought a Brand C computer. Furthermore,
80% of those who bought a Brand A computer also bought a Brand A tablet; 70% of
those who bought a Brand B computer also bought a Brand B tablet; and 50% of those
who bought a Brand C computer also bought a Brand C tablet. Given that a randomly
selected customer bought two different brands, what is the probability that they bought
a Brand A computer? Give your answer as a reduced fraction.

c 2021 North Suburban Mathematics League