Hands-on math!

Washington State Math Olympiad
Hints and Solutions
2009 Grade 5 Probability and Statistics

Problem
Hint
1) Katie and Jim play a game with 2 six sided number cubes numbered 1 through 6. When the number cubes are rolled, Katie gets a point if the sum of the two is even and Jim gets a point if the product is even. What is the likelihood that on one roll of both cubes both Katie and Jim get a point?
  1. The probability of Katie rolling an even sum of 2 dice is ____
  2. The products of two dice:
  3. There are ___ even products.
        The probability of an even product is ______
  4. The probability of them both getting a point = ____.
2) Randy opens up a bag of jelly beans after mixing them up. He pours out 10 and counts 4 red ones in the bunch. He wants to practice his knowledge of statistics and has his brother count all the jelly beans in the bag in another room. There are 160 according to his brother. Based on Randy's sample, about how many red jelly beans should be in the bag? 1. Find the probability of getting a red jelly bean using Randy's data: = ____%
2. Apply that same probability to the entire 160 bean bag: = ____%

Problem
Hint
3) The students in Mr. Beloshi's class are working in groups to draw a life size average fifth grader for their class of 25 students. Group A has gathered data about all the fifth graders in their class. Heights to the nearest inch are shown in the bar graph.

To the nearest inch, what is the mean height and what is the median height?
1. Compute the average (mean) by adding all the heights and dividing by 25: = _____
2. Using your pencil, cross off the highest, then the lowest and repeat this process until only one student is left. That student's height is the median = _____
4) Mr. Zee just can't play it straight. He's asked you to come over and help him paint his fence. He'll pay you based on the flip of 3 coins. If they all come up heads you get $100. If two heads, then $75, if one head $50 and no heads $25. What's the likelihood you will earn more than $50 for this job?

Here is a table of all possibilities:
Coin 1Coin 2Coin 3     $  
headheadhead  
headheadtail  
headtailhead  
headtailtail  
tailheadhead  
tailheadtail  
tailtailhead  
tailtailtail  
There are 8 possibilities. Fill in the pay for each coin combination.
Now just count up the possibilities that have a value over $50 and divide by 8.
5) If the pattern of the first six letters in CIRCUSCIRCUS . . . continues, then the pattern's 500th letter is? Divide 500 by 6. The remainder is the number of the 500th letter.