An Introduction to Probability

Alright young fellers, american idol is almost on so I'll try to finish this before it starts but if I don't..I'm sure I can do both! (:

Slide One
The first thing Mr. K asked us today was, "What is the probability of the sky falling?" (chicken little yay!) Each of us were given about a few minutes to write down our answer and we all shared our answers to each other. *refer to the first slide* Most of us came up with different numbers but some of us had the same answer as others. Most of us just chose a random number, like me, but some of us also took some time to why they choose that number. After this dicussion, he then asked us what the numerator and the denominator represented. The numerator is the number of chances of the sky actually falling while the denominator is the set of all possible outcomes.

Slide Two
The next slide explains the defintion of an inderterminate form. So if we take any number such as 6 and multiply it by one then divide by one your answer would be 6. And if you take the 6 again and multiply it by 1/10 then divide by 1/10, you still get the answer 6. Continuing the pattern, you'd eventually reach zero. So you would multiply 6 by zero then divide by zero. Therfore it is in an inderterminate form. If you recall on slide one, 0/0 and 0/∞ are examples of indeterminates as well as ∞/∞ and ∞/0. 1/0 is not in an indeterminate form, it is however, an undefined value.

Slide Three
The next slide includes various vocabulary words which we should know for this unit as well as different examples to explain the meaning of each words.

Slide Four
Calculating the Probability of Event A
This slide includes the formula P(A) = n(A)/n
P(A) - Denotes the probablity of A
n(A) - number of favourable outcomes (number of accourences of A)
n - sample space (the total number of possible outcomes
Probability can not only be expressed as a fraction but also as a ratio, decimal and a percent. However we will not be looking at it as a ratio in this unit.
IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Probability of any event is always a number between 0 or 1. This means that if your answer is bigger than one or it is a negative, then your answer must be wrong.

Slide Five
The fifth slide is also a continuation of the different vocabulary. In this specific slide we dicussed mainly about the complimentary event. The example he asked was, if there was a sudden death single tennis tournament and there were 54 players, how many games would be played if there could only be one winner? The easiest way of coming up with the answer is asking yourself, "how many losers would there be" The answer is 53 because only one player could win. Another example is using a coin or a die. Basically, you're looking for the opposite. So if P(E) = a then P(E¹) = 1-a.

Slide Six
In the next slide, we had to determine the sample space when a fair die is rolled once. Since it is possible to roll either 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, the answer to the question is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} *note: if you are asked to determine the sample space you must use brace brackets { }*
The next question was to determine the sample space for rolling a six sided die and flipping a coin. You could either use a tree diagram or a chart to find the answer. In this case we first used the tree diagram to find the answer. The first two branches consited of Heads and Tails and each had 6 branches to indicate the numbers on the die. Each number could either get H1 to H6 or T1 to T6 so the answer was 12.

Slide 7
We then had to determine the probability of rolling a 2 when rolling a fair die. The answer is 1/6 because there's only once chance of getting a 2 out of 6 different outcomes. We write this as P(2) = 1/6
In the next question it asked to determine the probability of getting a head and an odd number when rolling a die and flipping a coin. In this case we used the previous chart we made on slide 6 to find the answer. We then found that there are 3 possible chances out of 12 possible outcomes which also redues to 1/4. *note: remember to always reduce your fractions.

I believe I covered most of what we learned and talked about in class, so that means..I'm finished! (: This scribe actually took longer than I clearly expected considering I was running back and forth to my room and my sister's to watch American Idol. But enough of my life..toodles everyone, American Idol isn't over yet!

BTW..Homework is on slides 8-10 and don't forget to study for tomorrow's test! Goodluck and Ciao! OH and.. Next scribe is... "what it do PAUL wall" (:

BOB For Conics

This was a short unit that I was hardly there for because of the music trip to Moosejaw, which was fun, buut now it's time to get back to school and all that piled up work that I have to catch up on. Whooo.

Missing classes for a long period of time has never been a good thing, especially if it's your weakest, and most especially if it's pre-calculus. But some things can't be helped, I think. Well, either way I get in trouble soo..

The concepts were all there for me. Probably the hardest part of this unit was breaking down the question and figuring out which numbers I could use to make an equation. Of course graphing was hard (when is it not hard), but after you have that image, it makes everything so much easier. Everything could've probably been more straight forward if I was actually there (I'm not much of a self-learner when it comes to math) and that's just my fault I guess. Honestly, I'm not looking forward to this test, but I don't know, I think I've done what I can. Hope for the best I guess.

Hahah, as if I'm the very last one to BOB (I think so anyways), but better late than never. Good luck everyone.

Today's Slides: May 21

Here they are ...

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BOB: Conics

Time to Bob! (:

I'm quite happy that this unit was pretty short but I'm not going lie because truth be told, I did have some trouble in a few areas. The most trouble I had in this unit was graphing the parabola and I have no idea why I find that difficult compared to the others. The circle, ellipse and the hyperbola were probably the easiest because it was sort of similar to each other. I suppose I had trouble with the parabola because the formula seemed much different compared to others because it included 4p. Hopefully, with a bit more practice I'll feel much more comfortable graphing them. (:

The best part of the unit was folding the paper and visualizing the geometry in each conic section. I would probably have a harder time understanding the whole unit if Mr. K just explained each conic section without folding the paper. Though it took a lot of time and made me quite frustrated beacause the paper wouldn't fold the way I wanted it to, it helped me a lot to understand the anatomy of each conic.

Overall, this unit was pretty straight forward and hopefully I'll do better on the test on Thursday than the pretest we had today. *cross fingers and toes* Goodluck to everyone! Ciao! (:
PS. school's almost over! yay!!

Conic Workshops and Pre-Tests

This will be basic and short as I don't really have any time to spare.

Our first class consisted of

• A workshop on Conic word problems

Our Second class consisted of a Pre-Test.

Our first class was pretty straight forward and Mr. K just put us in groups to solve a number of word problems. When we started on the first one. Some of us had an answer, but we didn't put it up, whether it was right or wrong. Mr. K pointed out that we were afraid to get out our Ideas because most of us, if not, all, are afraid of getting the wrong answer, and we'll be "bad people". He also pointed out that we shouldn't be scared in getting our idea's out, because it wouldn't make us "bad people" and if everyone was always right, we wouldn't need to attend the class. Because how else do you learn? By making mistakes. So take that into consideration.

Anyways, we worked on a few questions but we sometimes made it a little complicated by looking at it wrong. Remember Mr.K's block of wood. Look at it in different perspectives. I won't really go into detail, and you can more or less pick your parts and pieces from the slides.

In the afternoon class, we had a Pre-Test, and again, the answers are posted up on the slides. Our test is on THURSDAY. Do recall that Mark has kindly posted Links for us to brush up on our Conics. I know I'm gonna hit those links up later, so you should too :) Mr. K also has practice exam's and exam information in his LINKS section (because you know, the exam is in a bout two weeks roughly) Sorry this is short and not into detail but I have to go. Kthxbye!

Oh right.. Scribe.. The next scribe shall be... ROXANNE :)

Today's Slides: May 20

Here they are ...

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BOB for CONICS

Here is my BOB for the unit Conic Sections.

What more can I say than .. "I've missed too many classes" ..
Although I've missed probably more than half the classes for this unit, it really seems like a fun unit. It seems like a unit that involves lots of algebra and equation handling. Anyways I'm hoping to participate in this last couple of days in this math class. Good luck to everyone! Especially me. I've read the blog, but it might not be enough. Hope I can keep up.

- This is Elven, cheers.