Shawn is playing a game with a set of cards. Half of them are blue and the other half are yellow. In the game, the player guesses the color of the top card, looks at the card, and returns the card to the deck. The player continues to do this, shuffling the deck after each guess. Shawn has guessed the first three attempts as "blue” and has been correct on each guess. He says he will guess "yellow” for the next card since a yellow card is due to happen. Is Shawn’s reasoning correct? Yes, Shawn has guessed well so far, so it is clear that he cannot miss. No, all of the cards have been blue so far, so the next one must also be blue. Yes, half of the cards are yellow, so the fourth card should be yellow to compensate for the first three cards being blue. No, the law of large numbers says that the proportion of yellow cards should approach the true probability after many trials.

Algebra and Trigonometry (MindTap Course List)
4th Edition
ISBN:9781305071742
Author:James Stewart, Lothar Redlin, Saleem Watson
Publisher:James Stewart, Lothar Redlin, Saleem Watson
Chapter14: Counting And Probability
Section14.CT: Chapter Test
Problem 1CT: Alice and Bill have four grandchildren, and they have three framed pictures of each grandchild. They...
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Shawn is playing a game with a set of cards. Half of them are blue and the other half are yellow. In the game, the player guesses the color of the top card, looks at the card, and returns the card to the deck. The player continues to do this, shuffling the deck after each guess.

Shawn has guessed the first three attempts as "blue” and has been correct on each guess. He says he will guess "yellow” for the next card since a yellow card is due to happen. Is Shawn’s reasoning correct?

Yes, Shawn has guessed well so far, so it is clear that he cannot miss.
No, all of the cards have been blue so far, so the next one must also be blue.
Yes, half of the cards are yellow, so the fourth card should be yellow to compensate for the first three cards being blue.
No, the law of large numbers says that the proportion of yellow cards should approach the true probability after many trials.
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