Need help finding probability that I will eventually get the positive outcome

kaysterino

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Jan 30, 2017
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So if my odds of getting a positive outcome is 40% and a negative outcome is 60% and I try 5 times... what is the probability that I will eventually get the positive outcome??? Please help if you can and tell me why?? Thanks,
 
Alright, well, often times when dealing with probability problems, it's easier to find the probability of an event not happening, and work from there. If I'm interpreting your problem correctly, you've been tasked with finding the probability of getting at least one success in 5 trials with a 40% success rate. The only way to not get at least one success is to get 0 successes. So, what's the probability of that happening? What does that make the actual answer to your problem? Recall that the probability of an event happening is always 1 minus the probability of it not happening.

If you get stuck again, that's okay, but when you reply back, please include any and all work you've done on this problem, even the parts you know for sure are wrong. Thank you.
 
The probability of "getting positive" on the first trial is 0.4. If that doesn't happen, try again. the probability of not getting positive on the first trial and then getting positive on the second is 0.6(0.4). Similarly the probability of getting positive for the first time on the third, fourth, and fifth trials are (0.6)^2(0.4), (0.6)^3(0.4), and (0.6)^4(0.4) respectively so the probability of "getting positive" in five trials is (0.4)(0.6+ 0.6^2+ 0.6^3+ 0.6^4)= (0.4)(1.3056)= 0.52224.
 
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