Question

In throwing a pair of dice, find the probability of getting a total of 8.

• A. 1/9
• B. 7/36
• C. 1/4
• D. 5/36

Answer 1

The correct option is D

5/36

We first find the number of elements in the sample space and then the favorable outcomes.

Since the events are equally-likely, we can write the probability as:

$\frac{numberoffavourableoutcomes}{totalnumberofoutcomes}$

When we throw a pair of dice, there are a total of 36 outcomes [(1,1)(1,2)...(2,1),(2,2).....(6,1),(6,2)....(6,6)]

If we want a sum of 8, the possible number on the dice are:(5,3)(4,4)(6,2)(3,5)(2,6)

Total favorable outcomes=5

Total number of outcomes=36

$\therefore$ Probability =$\frac{5}{36}$