We can rule out "theoretical probability" since that concept deals with doing the math on paper, rather than getting out an actual deck of cards to compute the probability. If your teacher stated "the probability of drawing an ace is 1/13", then s/he would be using theoretical probability. We have a 1 in 13 chance to theoretically pick an ace out of all 52 cards since 4/52 = 1/13. No cards are needed to do such calculations. But if you actually pull out a deck of cards and randomly select them, then you'd be leaning toward empirical or experimental probability.

So in short, we can rule out choice B.

We can also rule out "complement" since the two situations of "drawing a 4" and "drawing a 10" aren't opposite. If it said something like "drawing a red card or drawing a black card", then those two events are opposite. The two events fully compose all the deck of cards (sample space). You either will draw a red one, or a black one, but not both colors at the same time.

So we're down to the answer being either A) outcome or D) event. At first glance, these two terms seem almost identical. However, they mean slightly different things.

Let's pick apart what each of those terms mean.

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The outcome is the result of an event. An event is some specific action that you may or may not want to happen, and it's usually phrased within the parameters your teacher set up.

For example, we can define the event "it rains outside". So we're setting up the specific action of raining. Whether we want it or not doesn't really matter. The outcome would be the actual result of if the event happens or not. So if it does truly rain on day 1, then the outcome "rain" is what is recorded for day 1. Then if its dry on day 2, then "no rain" is the outcome for that second day. And so on.

Going back to the cards, one event could be set up as "selecting a heart card" with the outcome being "selected a 4 of hearts". The event is the rule set up and the outcome is the result we observe. To compute the empirical or experimental probability, we divide the number of times we get a specific event to occur over the total number of possible

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Let's look at another example.

We'll roll a single die that has 6 faces on it. The set of possible outcomes are {1,2,3,4,5,6}. Only one outcome is possible per roll.

If we roll the die and it lands on 5, then the outcome is 5. This is the final result of the trial or experiment.

We can define an event like "A = rolling an even number", and then ask the question "what is the probability event A occurs?" In other words, we would be asking "what is the probability of rolling an even number?"

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I suppose now that I think about it, we can state,

outcome = some single action you observe
event = collection of outcomes (usually some pattern to it)

as a loose way of telling the difference between the two terms.

Ultimately, the observations of getting a 4 of hearts and 10 of diamonds are considered an outcome.

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3 years ago