Back

Question: 2017 Fall Midterm - 17

Author: Michiel Smid
After having proctored the midterm, Alexa, Farah, May, and Shelly decide to go trick-or-treating. For any house that the ladies visit, if they do not receive candy, they throw rotten eggs at the house.
Let $m \geq 7$ and $n \geq 7$ be integers. There are $m$ houses whose owners hand out candy and there are $n$ houses whose owners do not hand out candy.
The ladies choose a uniformly random subset of 7 houses and visit these 7 houses. Define the event
  • A = "the ladies throw rotten eggs at exactly 2 of the 7 chosen houses".
What is $\Pr(A)$?
(a)
$\frac{{7 \choose 2}}{{m+n \choose 7}}$
(b)
$\frac{{7 \choose 2}}{{m \choose 5} \cdot {n \choose 2}}$
(c)
$\frac{{m \choose 5} \cdot {n \choose 2}}{{m+n \choose 7}}$
(d)
$\frac{{m \choose 5} + {n \choose 2}}{{m+n \choose 7}}$