I'm taking a statistics course and think I'm way over my head... unfortunately, it's a pre-req and I'm stuck.

Can anyone help me understand the basics? Here is a sample question and I simply don't know where to begin:

Coach John has two teams who won 347 games and tied 6 of the 526 total games.

Coach Bill has one team who won 324 games and tied 31 of the 506 total games.

If one filmstrip from every game each man coached were put in a bin and mixed... you pick one film... what is the probability that the film shows:
1) a tie game
2) a losing game
3) one of Coach John's team winning a game
4) one of Coach Bill's team winning a game
etc.

Thanks to any help!

When you take all the "games", put it in one box, you have 1032 games all together. 37 of them were tied and 361 were lost. So, probability to choose a tied game is 37/1032 and to choose a losing game is 361/1032, because you have an equal chance to pick any of the games.

Probability that you will chose a Coach Bill's winning game is 324/1032 and Coach John's is 347/1032.

Geez... I feel so silly. What a simple solution! For some reason, none of it made sense to me. Thank you so much for answering my question! The way you explained it made perfect sense. I have even been able to answer (correctly) a few more like that one.

I hope you're around when we get into sampling distributions :)

Thanks again!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by docv

Geez...I feel so silly. What a simple solution! For some reason, none of it made sense to me. Thank you so much for answering my question! The way you explained it made perfect sense. I have even been able to answer (correctly) a few more like that one.

I hope you're around when we get into sampling distributions :)

Thanks again!!

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:) No problems...

I had Probability Basics as a course at college... actually it was the last exam I took, so it's still fresh in my memory. I'm not sure I'll know much about distributions, but we'll see :)