Headline Story
Data and Probability, #2
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Introduction
Students should consider the theoretical probabilities of various outcomes of tossing number cubes in determining when each player receives a point. You might even have students play this game with their assigned point values during some free time during the day.
Headline Story
Invent a game called “Mine/Yours” where both players toss a number cube at the same time, but only one of the players gets a point. Make the game as fair as possible.
Possible student responses
- We could each claim certain sums. We can make a table and figure out all of the ways the different sums can happen — there are a total of 36 ways.
- One way to make it as fair as possible is for one player to get a point for tosses of 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 (15 ways), the other player to get a point for tosses of 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 (15 ways), and neither player to get a point for a toss of 7.
- Or, one player could get a point for even sums and the other could get a point for odd sums.
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