Twelve of the last 16 winners of the school science fair have been seventh grade students. Mona placed 3 red marbles and 1 green marble in a bag to create a simulation to predict whether future science fair winners will be seventh graders.

According to Mona’s model, what is the probability that the next 4 winners will all be seventh grade students?
StartFraction 3 over 16 EndFraction
StartFraction 81 over 256 EndFraction
Three-fourths
StartFraction 7 over 8 EndFraction

1 answer

To find the probability that the next 4 winners will all be seventh grade students according to Mona's model, we first need to determine the probability of a single winner being a seventh grader.

From the given information, we know that twelve of the last sixteen winners have been seventh graders. Thus, the probability \( P \) of a winner being a seventh grader is:

\[ P(\text{seventh grader}) = \frac{12}{16} = \frac{3}{4} \]

Next, we want to find the probability that all of the next 4 winners will be seventh graders. Since the winners are chosen independently, we can raise the probability of a single seventh grader to the power of the number of winners (4):

\[ P(\text{4 seventh graders}) = P(\text{seventh grader})^4 = \left( \frac{3}{4} \right)^4 \]

Now we calculate \( \left( \frac{3}{4} \right)^4 \):

\[ \left( \frac{3}{4} \right)^4 = \frac{3^4}{4^4} = \frac{81}{256} \]

Thus, the probability that the next 4 winners will all be seventh grade students is:

\[ \frac{81}{256} \]

Therefore, the answer is:

\(\frac{81}{256}\)