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  • Perplex
    IB Math AIHL
    /
    Probability
    /

    Combined Events

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    Exercises

    Key Skills

    Combined Events

    Combined Events

    Venn diagrams, intersection and union of events, conditional probability, independent events

    Want a deeper conceptual understanding? Try our interactive lesson! (Plus Only)

    Exercises

    No exercises available for this concept.

    Practice exam-style combined events problems

    Key Skills

    Venn Diagrams
    SL 4.6

    A Venn diagram is a visual tool used to illustrate relationships between sets or events. Each event is represented by a circle, and overlaps between circles represent shared outcomes. This helps you clearly see intersections (outcomes common to events), unions (all outcomes in any event), and mutually exclusive events (no overlap).

    problem image

    Venn diagrams are often filled in with numbers representing the number of samples in each category.

    Intersection of probabilities
    SL 4.6

    The intersection is the event where both ​A​ and ​B​ occur simultaneously, denoted ​A∩B.

    Union of probabilities
    SL 4.6

    The union is the event that at least one of ​A​ or ​B​ occurs. The union is denoted ​A∪B​ and has probability

    ​
    P(A∪B)=P(A)+P(B)−P(A∩B)📖
    ​

    This formula is sometimes referred to as the inclusion-exclusion rule. It is often rearranged in the form

    ​
    P(A∩B)=P(A)+P(B)−P(A∪B)🚫
    ​
    Mutually exclusive events
    SL 4.6

    Events are mutually exclusive if they cannot both occur at once. In this case, the intersection probability is zero:

    ​
    P(A∩B)=0🚫
    ​

    And therefore

    ​
    P(A∪B)=P(A)+P(B)📖
    ​
    Conditional Probability
    SL 4.6

    Conditional probability is the probability of event ​A​ happening given we already know event ​B​ has occurred. It's calculated by taking the probability that both events occur, divided by the probability of the known event ​B:

    ​
    P(A∣B)=P(B)P(A∩B)​📖
    ​


    Notice that we can rearrange this formula to get a general formula for the probability of multiple events,

    ​
    P(A∩B)=P(A∣B)P(B)=P(B∣A)P(A)
    ​
    Tables of outcomes

    Tables of outcomes are useful tools for visualizing interactions between events that are sorted into multiple categories. For example,


    (need better table tool)

    Independent events

    If two events ​A​ and ​B​ are independent, then knowing whether or not one happened gives no information on whether or not the other happened, and

    ​
    P(A∣B)=P(A),P(B∣A)=P(B)
    ​

    Rearranging the conditional probability formula gives the fact that for independent ​A​ and ​B,

    ​
    P(A∩B)=P(A)×P(B)
    ​