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Probability word problems worksheets

Probability starts with one draw from a bag. These free printable worksheets tell that bag as a story — so many red, so many blue — and ask for the chance of a color, or the chance of not that color, written as a fraction in simplest form.

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Probability word problems
Probability word problems worksheet — P(color), P(not color), free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

Every bag holds two colors and a whole number of each, and the total is always a composite number — 6, 8, 10, or 12 — so the fraction genuinely reduces: 3 out of 12 is a quarter, and the reduction is part of the work rather than an afterthought. No answer is ever a flat half, so a child cannot guess it by symmetry, and every color has at least two counters, so the bag is read rather than glanced at.

Why this sheet works

Two questions come off one bag. The probability of a color counts the favorable counters over the total; the probability of not that color is the same bag read the other way, and the two are what a student later sees add to one. Because the bag has exactly two colors, not red is simply the blue count — no child is asked to subtract a probability from one before they have met the idea.

How this one works

One question from a sheet like this one, worked a step at a time — with a sentence saying what just happened and why.

Probability word problems, step by step

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