Activity

In your problem scenario, the pool of candidate jurors consists of 26 men and 29 women.This is roughly representative of the equal numbers of males and females in the national population.From this pool, the lawyers have chosen a jury of 10 men and 2 women.Your job is to determine whether this selection could reasonably be explained by random selection.Answer the questions below to carry out your investigation.

Question 1

What is the number of possible combinations of 10 men chosen from 26 men in the juror pool?Write your response in the formnCr.

Question 2

Using symbols, what is the number of combinations of 2 women chosen from 29 women in the juror pool?

Question 3

Using symbols, express how many combinations of 10 men and 2 women are possible.

Question 4

What is the numerical probability of selecting a jury with 10 men and 2 women?

Question 5

Does this jury composition raise a suspicion of bias?Why or why not?

Question 6

What is the numerical probability that a randomly selected jury consists of 8 men and 4 women?

Question 7

What is the numerical probability that all the members of a randomly chosen jury would be women?

Question 8

What is the probability that a randomly chosen jury consists of 6 men and 6 women?

Question 9

Do any of the last three jury compositions raise concerns about bias?Why?