There are 10 trees in a garden, and a gardener randomly selects 3 different trees to prune. Is the probability that all 3 selected trees are oaks greater than \(\frac{1}{20}\)?The probability that the three selected trees are oaks depends on how many of the 10 trees are oak trees. So, any type of information on the number of oak trees may be sufficient for answering the question.
(1) The probability that two randomly selected trees are both oaks is \(\frac{2}{15}\).The quickest way to determine whether this statement is sufficient is to see that, for the probability that two randomly selected trees are both oaks to be \(\frac{2}{15}\), there has to be a certain number of oak trees. If the number of oak trees is higher or lower than that certain number, the probability that two randomly selected trees are both oaks will not be \(\frac{2}{15}\).
So, we don't have to calculate the number of oak trees to realize that, given the information provided by this statement, we could calculate that number.
Sufficient.
(2) There are 6 maple trees in the garden.This statement is tricky because the information it provides is different from the information provided by statement (1) in that the information provided by statement (1) is sufficient for calculating the exact number of oak trees whereas the information provided by this statement is not.
So, we could easily decide that this statement is not sufficient
unless we are careful to note the question asked, which is "Is the probability that all 3 selected trees are oaks
greater than \(\frac{1}{20}\)?
We see that we don't have to calculate the exact number of oak trees to answer the question. We just have to determine whether it can be greater than \(\frac{1}{20}\).
This statement indicates that the number of oak trees is a maximum of 4. It could be less than 4, but it cannot be greater than 4.
So, the greatest possible probability of selecting 3 oak trees is \(\frac{4}{10} × \frac{3}{9} × \frac{2}{8} = \frac{1}{30}\).
Since \(\frac{1}{30} < \frac{1}{20}\), this statement is sufficient for answering the question.
Correct answer: D