2016 AMC 8 Problems/Problem 13

Problem

Two different numbers are randomly selected from the set $\{ - 2, -1, 0, 3, 4, 5\}$ and multiplied together. What is the probability that the product is $0$ ?

$\textbf{(A) }\dfrac{1}{6}\qquad\textbf{(B) }\dfrac{1}{5}\qquad\textbf{(C) }\dfrac{1}{4}\qquad\textbf{(D) }\dfrac{1}{3}\qquad \textbf{(E) }\dfrac{1}{2}$

Solutions

Solution 1

1. Identify the total number of ways to select two different numbers from the set:

The set has 6 elements. The number of ways to choose 2 different numbers from 6 is given by the combination formula: $\binom{6}{2} = \frac{6 \times 5}{2 \times 1} = 15$ .

2. Identify the favorable outcomes:

For the product to be zero, one of the chosen numbers must be zero. The set contains one zero (0). To have a product of zero, we need to choose 0 and any other number from the remaining five numbers $-2, -1, 3, 4, 5$ .

The number of ways to choose 0 and one other number from the remaining five is 5.

3. Calculate the probability:

The probability is the number of favorable outcomes divided by the total number of outcomes: $\text{Probability} = \frac{\text{Number of favorable outcomes}}{\text{Total number of outcomes}} = \frac{5}{15} = \frac{1}{3}$ .

Thus, the probability that the product is $0$ is $\boxed{\textbf{(D)} \ \frac{1}{3}}.$

Solution 2 (Complementary Counting)

Because the only way the product of the two numbers is $0$ is if one of the numbers we choose is $0,$ we calculate the probability of NOT choosing a $0.$ We get $\frac{5}{6} \cdot \frac{4}{5} = \frac{2}{3}.$ Therefore our answer is $1 - \frac{2}{3} = \boxed{\textbf{(D)} \ \frac{1}{3}}.$

Video Solution (CREATIVE THINKING!!!)

https://youtu.be/cRsvq0BH4MI

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Video Solution by OmegaLearn

https://youtu.be/6xNkyDgIhEE?t=357

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Video Solution

https://youtu.be/jDeS4A6N-nE

~savannahsolver

2016 AMC 8 (Problems • Answer Key • Resources)
Preceded by Problem 12	Followed by Problem 14
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25
All AJHSME/AMC 8 Problems and Solutions

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