Hi guest :)
John has a empty box. He puts some red counters and some blue counters. The ratio of the number of red counters to blue counters is 1:4. Linda takes at random 2 counters. The probability that she took 2 red counters is 6/155. How many red counters did John put in the box?
Let there be x red counters, then there will be 4x blue counters which equals 5x counters altogether in the box.
so the probability that the first counter will be red is x5x=15
Now there are x-1 red counters left out of 5x-1 counters in total so
the probablility that the second counter is red is x−15x−1
P(bothred)=15×(x−1)(5x−1)=6155 (x−1)5(5x−1)=6155(x−1)∗155=6∗5(5x−1)155x−155=150x−305x=125x=25
So there was 25 red marbles in the box :)