Question

You have 9 black balloons, 5 white balloons, 4 red balloons, and 2 purple balloons. You randomly select 3 without replacement, the order does not matter.

What is the probability that 2 are white and one is purple? Show your work.

Answer 1

Since the order does not matter that means that all these events will count as the same:

• WWP
• WPW
• PWW

Where W represents drawing a white balloon, and P drawing a purple balloon.

Now the required probability is:

P(2 white, 1 purple)

=P(Draw 1 white) * P(Draw 2 white/1 was white) * P(Draw 1 purple/2 whites were drawn in 1 and 2)

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