Bag A contains 9 white and 8 black balls, while bag B contains 6 white and 4 black balls. One ball is randomly picked up from the bag B and mixed up with the balls in the bag A. Then a ball is randomly drawn from the bag A. If the probability, that the ball drawn is white, is pq, (p, q) = 1, then p + q is equal to
- 24
- 22
- 23
- 21
Answer
(3) 23
Solution
E1: white ball transferred from B, P(E1) = 610
E2: black ball transferred from B, P(E2) = 410
Bag A then has 18 balls:
P(W | E1) = 1018, P(W | E2) = 918
By the theorem of total probability:
P(W) = 610 1018 + 410 918
= 60 + 36180 = 96180 = 815
p + q = 8 + 15 = 23
Answer: (3)