Original practice · fully worked
Original variant: assemble a marginal from two disjoint cells
A validation event A is split by whether a separate flag B is present. The recorded probabilities are P(A and B)=0.12 and P(A and not B)=0.28. Find P(A).
- A
0.12 - B
0.16 - C
0.28 - D
0.40 - E
0.72
Answer and calculation
The two listed cells are disjoint and exhaust event A, so their sum is 0.40, choice D.
Setup
Setup
Partition event A into the disjoint cells where B occurs and where B does not occur.
A=(A∩B)∪˙(A∩Bc) Model
Model
Because the two cells are disjoint and exhaust A, add their probabilities to recover the marginal probability of A.
Pr(A)=Pr(A∩B)+Pr(A∩Bc) Compute
Compute
Adding the two recorded cell probabilities gives 0.12+0.28=0.40.
Pr(A)=0.12+0.28=0.40 Answer
Answer
Thus Pr(A)=0.40, which corresponds to choice D.
0.40(D)