What are the possible outcomes ?

Question

A die has six faces numbered from 1 to 6. It is rolled and number on the top face is noted. When this is treated as a random trial. (Random trial: All possible outcomes are known before hand and the exact outcome can’t be predicted, then only the experiment is treated as a random experiment or a trial.)

a) What are the possible outcomes ?

b) Are they equally likely ? Why ?

c) Find the probability of a composite number turning up on the top face.

Answer 1

a) The possible outcomes are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

b) Yes. All the outcomes are equally likely since every event has equal chance of occurrence or no event has priority to occur.

c) Even : Turning up of a composite number 

Possible outcomes = 4, 6 

No. of possible outcomes = 2 

Total outcomes = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 

Number of total outcomes = 6

Probability = \(\frac {No.\, of\, favourable\, outcomes}{Total \, no. \, of\, outcomes}\) = 2/6 = 1/3