4. John is playing in a basketball game. He has attempted 10 shots and made 4 of them. Determine the
minimum number of additional shots that he needs to make to have an overall scoring rate of exactly
Answers
A basketball player has two foul shots (free throw), if he is a 90% free throw shooter. What is the probability that he will make 2 of 2?
This is an interesting question that I think many basketball players dont know the answer to but many non-basketball players find easy.
The way to figure this out is with realizing how probabilities work.
The way to see this is as two separate events, the first shot and the second shot. The first shot has a probability of 90% going in and 10% missing. The same with the second shot. This means that there are 4 possibilities.
Both go in
First goes in and second misses
First misses and second goes in
Both miss
Youll notice that the second and third scenarios have the same result of one free throw going in. Now ill introduce a very basic stats theory. The probability of two (or more) events all happening is the probability of the first event multiplied by the probability of the second event given that the first has already happened. We also convert percentages to decimal notation. Also since the probability of the free throw going in is 90%, the probability of a miss is 10%. The free throw must either go in or not go in.
So a breakdown of our probabilities is
0.9×0.9=0.81=81%
0.9×0.1=0.09=9%
0.1×0.9=0.09=9%
0.1×0.1=0.01=1%
You can combine the second and third to the probability of one shot going in to be 18% if you dont care about order.