Question 1 of 5
A bag contains only red and blue chips. The probability of selecting a red chip is . After 4 red chips are removed and no blue chips are removed, the probability of selecting a red chip becomes . How many chips were originally in the bag?
Explanation
Let the original total number of chips be . Since the probability of selecting a red chip is , the number of red chips was , and the number of blue chips was .
After 4 red chips are removed, the number of red chips becomes , and the total number of chips becomes . The new probability of selecting a red chip is , so
Cross-multiply:
Simplify:
Subtract from both sides:
Add 8 to both sides:
Multiply by 5:
So, the bag originally contained chips.
Concept summary
For probability problems with changing totals, write probability as before and after the change, then solve the resulting equation.