"There are n sweets in a bag. 6 of the sweets are orange. The rest of the sweets are yellow. Hannah takes at random a sweet from the bag. She eats the sweet. Hannah then takes at random another sweet from the bag. She eats the sweet. The probability that Hannah eats two orange sweets is ⅓.
(b) Solve n2 – n – 90 = 0 to find the value of n."
Look familiar? This question caused massive controversy when it was released in summer 2015 as it was seen as too much like things to come - many felt that it was more like the sort of question we might expect in 2017 when the new '1-9' GCSE is first examined and had no place in the current GCSE. Whether you believe this or not, the point is clear that pupils need to understand the ideas of probability and apply them outside the realms of numerical chance. With that in mind I thought I would share some ideas about developing probability without giving (too many) values.
Probability and Proportion
I am surprised we do not see more links between probability and proportion as ultimately probability is a proportional idea, the chance of something happening is measured as a proportion of the things that are possible or as a proportion of a number of trials in an experiment. In the past proportionality has generally be pretty limited to calculating an expected number of trials that would satisfy the given condition. I think it is clear though that with anything up to 25% of the new GCSE paper content being linked to ratio and proportion I think that we will see a lot more questions linking these two topics in the future. Questions like the ones below could become much more common:
1) A packet of sweets has orange, blackcurrant, strawberry and lemon sweets in the ratio 4:3:2:1. James and Sarah both buy packets of the same number of sweets. James doesn't like strawberry and so gives all of his strawberry sweets to Sarah. Sarah gives James all of her lemon sweets in return. If James takes a sweet at random from his bag, work out the probability that James take a lemon sweet.
2) A childs' shape sorter has red, green, blue and yellow shapes. The number of red shapes is twice the number of green shapes. The number of blue shapes is twice the number of yellow shapes. In total the number of red and green shapes is twice the number total number of blue and yellow shapes. Work out the probability of a child selecting a red shape if the shape is taken at random.
To be fair it strikes me that a lot of ratio and proportion question can be adapted to give a probability question - question (1) above could just as easily be "write down the ratio" rather than "work out the probability" and there are lots of ratio and proportion questions out there that could be adapted to this vein.
Probability and Algebra
Hannah and her sweets have given us a pretty clear indication that this will be a rich source of links for examiners to mine and again it makes perfect sense: if you understand the ideas of probability and algebraic expressions/equations then there should be no reason why you cant apply the two ideas together. We have also seen in the SAMs at least one question that has purely algebraic expressions inside a Venn diagram linked to probability for pupils to work with and I am sure we will see more examples in the coming years.
1)
2) A bag of counters contains red, blue and green counters. There is one more red counter than green, and one more green counter than blue. Stefan takes a counter out of the bag and puts it on the table, followed by a second. The probability that Stefan takes a blue followed by a red is 1/9. Calculate the probability that Stefan takes two greens.
It strikes me that replacing lots of the numbers in current probability questions with letters will generate questions of this type, and so would be well worth some time in faculty meetings designing.
No doubt at this point people will be thinking "yes but probability and statistics will only be 15% or so of the content..." and of course they are right, but don't forget that 15% of 240 marks is a good 36 marks, so there is plenty of space for one of two questions of this type to creep in, particularly as they can also count towards the 20% to 30% Algebra content or 25% to 20% Ratio content so I would suggest it is well worth building questions like this into your GCSE schemes.
(a) Show that n2 – n –
90 = 0
Look familiar? This question caused massive controversy when it was released in summer 2015 as it was seen as too much like things to come - many felt that it was more like the sort of question we might expect in 2017 when the new '1-9' GCSE is first examined and had no place in the current GCSE. Whether you believe this or not, the point is clear that pupils need to understand the ideas of probability and apply them outside the realms of numerical chance. With that in mind I thought I would share some ideas about developing probability without giving (too many) values.
Probability and Proportion
I am surprised we do not see more links between probability and proportion as ultimately probability is a proportional idea, the chance of something happening is measured as a proportion of the things that are possible or as a proportion of a number of trials in an experiment. In the past proportionality has generally be pretty limited to calculating an expected number of trials that would satisfy the given condition. I think it is clear though that with anything up to 25% of the new GCSE paper content being linked to ratio and proportion I think that we will see a lot more questions linking these two topics in the future. Questions like the ones below could become much more common:
1) A packet of sweets has orange, blackcurrant, strawberry and lemon sweets in the ratio 4:3:2:1. James and Sarah both buy packets of the same number of sweets. James doesn't like strawberry and so gives all of his strawberry sweets to Sarah. Sarah gives James all of her lemon sweets in return. If James takes a sweet at random from his bag, work out the probability that James take a lemon sweet.
2) A childs' shape sorter has red, green, blue and yellow shapes. The number of red shapes is twice the number of green shapes. The number of blue shapes is twice the number of yellow shapes. In total the number of red and green shapes is twice the number total number of blue and yellow shapes. Work out the probability of a child selecting a red shape if the shape is taken at random.
To be fair it strikes me that a lot of ratio and proportion question can be adapted to give a probability question - question (1) above could just as easily be "write down the ratio" rather than "work out the probability" and there are lots of ratio and proportion questions out there that could be adapted to this vein.
Probability and Algebra
Hannah and her sweets have given us a pretty clear indication that this will be a rich source of links for examiners to mine and again it makes perfect sense: if you understand the ideas of probability and algebraic expressions/equations then there should be no reason why you cant apply the two ideas together. We have also seen in the SAMs at least one question that has purely algebraic expressions inside a Venn diagram linked to probability for pupils to work with and I am sure we will see more examples in the coming years.
1)
2) A bag of counters contains red, blue and green counters. There is one more red counter than green, and one more green counter than blue. Stefan takes a counter out of the bag and puts it on the table, followed by a second. The probability that Stefan takes a blue followed by a red is 1/9. Calculate the probability that Stefan takes two greens.
It strikes me that replacing lots of the numbers in current probability questions with letters will generate questions of this type, and so would be well worth some time in faculty meetings designing.
No doubt at this point people will be thinking "yes but probability and statistics will only be 15% or so of the content..." and of course they are right, but don't forget that 15% of 240 marks is a good 36 marks, so there is plenty of space for one of two questions of this type to creep in, particularly as they can also count towards the 20% to 30% Algebra content or 25% to 20% Ratio content so I would suggest it is well worth building questions like this into your GCSE schemes.
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