John has a bag of different colored marbles. He has 6 red marbles, 3 blue marbles, 7 yellow marbles, and 5 green marbles. If John reaches into the bag and randomly pulls out a marble, what is the probability that the marble will be blue? (If necessary, round to the nearest tenth.)

Responses
28.6%

85.7%

30.0%

14.3%

1 answer

To calculate the probability of pulling out a blue marble, we first need to find the total number of marbles in the bag. We can do this by adding up the number of marbles of each color:

  • Red marbles: 6
  • Blue marbles: 3
  • Yellow marbles: 7
  • Green marbles: 5

Now, let's calculate the total number of marbles:

\[ \text{Total marbles} = 6 + 3 + 7 + 5 = 21 \]

Next, we find the probability of pulling out a blue marble. The probability \( P \) of an event is calculated as the number of successful outcomes divided by the total number of possible outcomes. In this case, the successful outcome is drawing a blue marble.

So, the probability \( P(\text{blue}) \) is:

\[ P(\text{blue}) = \frac{\text{Number of blue marbles}}{\text{Total number of marbles}} = \frac{3}{21} \]

Now, we can simplify this fraction:

\[ P(\text{blue}) = \frac{3}{21} = \frac{1}{7} \]

To convert this fraction into a percentage, we can divide 1 by 7 and then multiply by 100:

\[ \frac{1}{7} \approx 0.142857 \quad \text{(approximately)} \] \[ 0.142857 \times 100 \approx 14.2857% \]

Rounding to the nearest tenth gives us approximately \( 14.3% \).

So, the probability that the marble will be blue is:

14.3%