ShmoopTube

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Here's a shmoopy question for you...

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Suppose the spinner shown below is fair, meaning

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that each of the little pie slice shaped thingies have an equal chance of being landed upon.

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Bethany's friends can't find the Twister board, so they're forced to use this thing.

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What is the probability of her spinning the spinner once and getting a vowel or the letter T?

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If she's successful, she'll get to put her foot right up against Greg's foot,

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which would be just about the best thing ever.

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Here are the potential answers:

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OK, so what is this question asking?

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Well, first, whether we can read something resembling a pie chart.

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Second, the question is testing whether we understand how the word "OR" works in

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these probability style questions.

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When we have "OR", we ...ADD... meaning that the stuff before the OR and the stuff

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after it get summed when we figure out the total probability quotient.

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That is... if EITHER of the things on either side of the OR sign happen,

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then we positively count the numbers involved.

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So in this case, the first part -- before the OR -- is asking for the odds of spinning a vowel...

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This part is pretty straightforward -- we can count 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 letters total...

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and here are the vowels -- A and E...

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...those are vowels and there are 2 of them.

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So the odds of spinning a vowel on the first spin are... 2 out of 8.

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But then the second part of the question adds the "OR ROLL A T" --

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and there are 3 T's -- so we just... add.

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Two vowels plus 3 T's and we get 5 potential YAY outcomes out of a total of 8.

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And the answer is C.

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Holla... Bethany gets the spin she was hoping for and is now getting close and personal with her crush.

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