Students in a high school can choose to study Spanish or French as a foreign language. In a given academic year, 90% of the pupils choose Spanish and the rest choose French. 30% of the students who are learning Spanish are boys and 40% who are studying French are also boys. If a student was randomly selected from this academic year, what is the probability that it would be a girl?

Solution

Probability tree
Probability tree

$$ \begin{aligned} P(Girl)&= P(Spanish)\times P(Girls|Spanish) + P(French)\times P(Girls|French)\\ &=0.9*0.7 + 0.1*0.6\\ & = 0.69 \end{aligned} $$

Further Reading