Skip to main content
OlympiadHQ

Browse · MATH

Print

jmc

counting and probability senior

Problem

Two cards are chosen at random from a standard 52-card deck. What is the probability that both cards are numbers (2 through 10) totaling to 12?
Solution
There are two cases that we have to consider.

Case 1: The first card is one of 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10.

There are 32 such cards, so this occurs with probability . For any of these cards, there are 4 cards left in the deck such that the cards sum to 12, so the probability of drawing one is . Thus, the probability that this case occurs is .

Case 2: The first card is a 6.

There are 4 of these, so this occurs with probability . Now we need to draw another 6. There are only 3 left in the deck, so the probability of drawing one is . Thus, the probability that this case occurs is .

Therefore the overall probability is
Final answer
\frac{35}{663}