In a class of students, the following data table summarizes how many students have a brother or a sister. What is the probability that a student chosen randomly from the class does not have a brother?

Has a brother Does not have a brother
Has a sister 2 6
Does not have a sister 5 8
Answer

1 answer

To determine the probability that a randomly chosen student does not have a brother, we first need to calculate the total number of students and the number of students who do not have a brother.

From the table:

  • Students who have a brother and have a sister: 2
  • Students who do not have a brother and have a sister: 6
  • Students who have a brother and do not have a sister: 5
  • Students who do not have a brother and do not have a sister: 8

Let's summarize the data:

  • Students who have a brother: \( 2 + 5 = 7 \)
  • Students who do not have a brother: \( 6 + 8 = 14 \)

Now we can calculate the total number of students:

\[ \text{Total Students} = (Has : brother : and : has : sister) + (Does : not : have : brother : and : has : sister) + (Has : brother : and : does : not : have : sister) + (Does : not : have : brother : and : does : not : have : sister) \]

Substituting the values:

\[ \text{Total Students} = 2 + 6 + 5 + 8 = 21 \]

Next, we focus on the number of students who do not have a brother, which we calculated earlier as 14.

Now we can find the probability that a randomly chosen student does not have a brother:

\[ P(\text{Does not have a brother}) = \frac{\text{Number of students who do not have a brother}}{\text{Total number of students}} = \frac{14}{21} \]

To simplify this fraction:

\[ \frac{14}{21} = \frac{2}{3} \]

Thus, the probability that a randomly chosen student does not have a brother is

\[ \boxed{\frac{2}{3}}. \]