2008 AMC 10B Problems/Problem 20

Problem

The faces of a cubical die are marked with the numbers $1$, $2$, $2$, $3$, $3$, and $4$. The faces of another die are marked with the numbers $1$, $3$, $4$, $5$, $6$, and $8$. What is the probability that the sum of the top two numbers will be $5$, $7$, or $9$?

$\mathrm{(A)}\ 5/18\qquad\mathrm{(B)}\ 7/18\qquad\mathrm{(C)}\ 11/18\qquad\mathrm{(D)}\ 3/4\qquad\mathrm{(E)}\ 8/9$

Solution

The easiest way is to write a table of all $36$ possible outcomes, do the sums, and count good outcomes.

     1  3  4  5  6  8
   ------------------
1 |  2  4  5  6  7  9
2 |  3  5  6  7  8 10
2 |  3  5  6  7  8 10
3 |  4  6  7  8  9 11
3 |  4  6  7  8  9 11
4 |  5  7  8  9 10 12

We see that out of $36$ possible outcomes $4$ give the sum of $5$, $6$ the sum of $7$, and $4$ the sum of $9$, hence the resulting probability is $\frac{4+6+4}{36}=\frac{14}{36}=\boxed{\frac{7}{18}}$.


See also

2008 AMC 10B (ProblemsAnswer KeyResources)
Preceded by
Problem 19
Followed by
Problem 21
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All AMC 10 Problems and Solutions

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