Question

Explain the difference between independent and dependent events AND how I can tell the difference in a word problem.

Example: Suppose you have a bag of marbles, there are 4 white, 4 zebra striped, and 2 black. You take out a marble without looking, you do not replace it and then you take out another marble. What is the p

Answer 1

The difference between the two is that in a dependent event an action will affect the ultimate outcome, but in an independent event an action won't affect the ultimate outcome. A way to tell is if the total number of the "item" at hand will be affected by the action the question is saying. In the case of the example given, that is a dependent event because the total of marbles you started with is changed due to you not replacing the one you first took. Therefore the probability is now different.

Explanation: