Question

A bag contains 20 balls, some red and some purple. Suppose a student, without looking, chooses a ball out of the bag, records the color and then places the ball back in the bag. The student has recorded 3 red balls and 2 purple balls so far. Using these results, predict the number of red balls in the bag.

Answer 1

Answer:

12 red balls

Explanation:

The number of balls recorded so far:

• Red = 3

,

• Purple = 2

This means that the relative frequency of obtaining a red ball will be:

$\text{ Relative Frequency for Red Ball}=\frac{3}{3+2}=\frac{3}{5}$$\text{ Relative Frequency for Red Ball}=\frac{3}{3+2}=\frac{3}{5}$

Since there are 20 balls in the bag:

$\begin{gathered} \text{ Expected Outcome}=\text{ Relative Frequency}\times\text{ Total Number of Trials} \\ =\frac{3}{5}\times20 \\ =3\times4 \\ =12\text{ red balls} \end{gathered}$

The number of red balls in the bag will be most likely 12.