SAT Question of the Day #27

A special lottery is to be held to select the student who will live in the only deluxe room in a dormitory. There are seniors, juniors, and sophomores who applied. Each senior’s name is placed in the lottery times; each junior’s name, times; and each sophomore’s name, time. What is the probability that a senior’s name will be chosen?

A.  1/8

B. 2/9

C. 2/7

D. 3/8

E. 1/2

The answer is:    D   3/8

How do you get to the answer:  To determine the probability that a senior’s name will be chosen, you must determine the total number of seniors’ names that are in the lottery and divide this number by the total number of names in the lottery. Since each senior’s name is placed in the lottery times, there are seniors’ names. Likewise, there are juniors’ names and sophomores’ names in the lottery. The probability that a senior’s name will be chosen is .