Question

A box contains 5 plain pencils and 5 pens. A second box contains 3 color pencils and 7 crayons. One item from each box is chosen at random. What is the probability that a plain pencil from the first box and a color pencil from the second box are selected

Answer 1

The events 'select a plain pencil' and 'select a color pencil' are independent. therefore the probability of both occurring is the product of their probabilities:
$P(plain\ pencil\ and\ color\ pencil)=\frac{5}{10}\times\frac{3}{10}=\frac{3}{20}$
The answer is 3/20 or 0.15.