In a bag containing 2 blue, 3 green, and 3 red marbles, what is the probability that a marble drawn at random will be blue?

In a bag containing 2 blue, 3 green, and 3 red marbles, what is the probability that a marble drawn at random will be blue?

• A. 1/4
• B. 1/2
• C. 1/6
• D. 2/5

Answer: (A)

Probability is found by comparing how many favorable outcomes there are to the total number of possible outcomes when drawing one item. There are 2 blue marbles out of 8 total marbles, so the chance of drawing blue is 2/8, which simplifies to 1/4. This matches the option showing one-quarter. The other fractions don’t fit because they would imply more or fewer blue marbles relative to the total than actually exist (for example, 1/2 would need half the marbles to be blue, which isn’t the case here; 1/6 would imply about 1.33 blue marbles, which isn’t possible; 2/5 would imply 3.2 blue marbles, also not possible).

Probability is found by comparing how many favorable outcomes there are to the total number of possible outcomes when drawing one item. There are 2 blue marbles out of 8 total marbles, so the chance of drawing blue is 2/8, which simplifies to 1/4. This matches the option showing one-quarter. The other fractions don’t fit because they would imply more or fewer blue marbles relative to the total than actually exist (for example, 1/2 would need half the marbles to be blue, which isn’t the case here; 1/6 would imply about 1.33 blue marbles, which isn’t possible; 2/5 would imply 3.2 blue marbles, also not possible).