Question 1 of 5
A wildlife center is tagging birds before releasing them. Of the 120 birds tagged, 45 are hawks and the rest are owls. One bird is selected at random from the tagged birds, and then a second bird is selected at random without replacement. What is the probability that both selected birds are hawks?
Explanation
There are 120 tagged birds total, and 45 of them are hawks. The probability that the first bird selected is a hawk is . Because the first bird is not replaced, there are now 119 birds left, and 44 of them are hawks. So the probability that the second bird is also a hawk is . Multiply the probabilities:
Therefore, the probability that both selected birds are hawks is .
Concept summary
For two selections without replacement, multiply the probability of the first event by the probability of the second event after the total number of items has changed.