DP Math AA · HL / SL · Statistics & Probability · Updated

SL 4.11—Conditional and independent probabilities, test for independence

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What is Conditional Probability?

In everyday life, new information changes what we expect. If you know it's already raining, the probability that someone will carry an umbrella is different from the baseline probability. This is the essence of conditional probability.

Conditional Probability

The probability of event occurring given that event has already occurred. It is written as , read as "the probability of given ".

The formula is:

Where:

  • is the probability that both and occur
  • is the probability that the conditioning event occurs

Intuitively, conditioning on restricts your sample space to only the outcomes where has happened — then you ask what fraction of those outcomes also include .

What is Conditional Probability?

Analogy

Think of a Venn diagram. Once you know has occurred, the entire circle for becomes your new universe. Conditional probability asks: within that -circle, how much of it overlaps with ?

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