ShmoopTube

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Here's a shmoopy question for you...

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Two fair spinners, each separated into equal regions,

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one with the letters A through E on it,

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and the other with numbers 1 through 5, are spun.

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There's a lot riding on this, because it's to determine who has to wear a clown costume

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to school on Monday... Jason or his sister.

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The possible outcomes are shown in the table below.

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On this upcoming spin, what is the probability of obtaining either a vowel or an even number?

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Jason will need one or the other, or he might as well start shining his big fat shoes...

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And here are the potential answers:

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OK, so this is another spin question.

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We have a 2 by 2 table with numbers on the vertical column and letters on the horizontal row.

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When we spin the two spinners,

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we're going to get 1 thing from the y axis and 1 thing from the x.

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And note that there are TWO spins as well -- the first will choose from the letters

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and asks what the odds are if we get a vowel.

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Well, out of A, B, C, D, and E... ...A and E are vowels.

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Then you have the 2nd spin, which is asking for the odds of spinning an even number.

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Well, out of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, there are only 2 even numbers --

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yep 2 and 4.

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The question is asking us to find the probability

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of obtaining either a vowel or an even number...

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...which means we can just count any combination

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that includes at least one of the following: an A, E, 2, or 4.

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If we count up the first two columns, and the second and fourth row, we get 16 possibilities

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out of a total of 25... so the answer is C.

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Despite having better than average odds, Jason

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fails to spin one of the desired results... ...and he's going to have to pay the price.

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