Big Ideas Math Geometry, 2014
BI
Big Ideas Math Geometry, 2014 View details
Mathematical Practices
Continue to next subchapter

Exercise 2 Page 666

We want to know how likely the event is that the two oldest children in a family with three children are girls. To figure this out, we will list every way in which the three children could be born. We will write for boys and for girls. Let's write an example!
This example indicates that the oldest child is a girl, the second child is a girl, and the youngest child is a boy. This one of the cases that would fit the given scenario! Now, let's list all the ways in which the three children could be born.
To determine the probability that the two oldest children in a family with three children are girls, we will divide the ways in which the two oldest children are girls by all the ways in which the three children could be born. We can see that there are ways in which the two oldest children are girls and ways in total.
The probability that the family has two girls as their first two children is Because this is less than half, the event that the two oldest children in a family with three children are girls is unlikely.