Reese is using a coin to predict the gender of the puppies born to her dog. According to Reese’s model, which is the probability that a litter of 5 puppies will be all males?

StartFraction 1 over 32 EndFraction
StartFraction 1 over 16 EndFraction
StartFraction 1 over 10 EndFraction
One-half
Reese is using a coin to predict the gender of the puppies born to her dog. According to Reese’s model, which is the probability that a litter of 5 puppies will be all males?
StartFraction 1 over 32 EndFraction
StartFraction 1 over 16 EndFraction
StartFraction 1 over 10 EndFraction
One-half

1 answer

To determine the probability that a litter of 5 puppies will all be male, we can use the assumption that the probability of a puppy being male is 1/2 (similar to flipping a coin, where there are only two equally likely outcomes: heads or tails).

Since the sex of each puppy is independent, we can find the probability of all 5 puppies being male by multiplying the probability for one puppy by itself for the total number of puppies:

\[ P(\text{all males}) = P(\text{male})^5 = \left(\frac{1}{2}\right)^5 = \frac{1}{32} \]

Thus, the probability that a litter of 5 puppies will be all males is:

\[ \frac{1}{32} \]

The correct answer is StartFraction 1 over 32 EndFraction.