2012 AMC 10B Problem 18
Problem 18 of 25IntermediateCounting & Probability
Suppose that one of every people in a certain population has a particular disease, which displays no symptoms. A blood test is available for screening for this disease. For a person who has this disease, the test always turns out positive.
For a person who does not have the disease, however, there is a false positive rate. In other words, for such people, of the time the test will turn out negative, but of the time the test will turn out positive and will incorrectly indicate that the person has the disease.
Let be the probability that a person who is chosen at random from this population and gets a positive test result actually has the disease. Which of the following is closest to
Answer choices
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Solution
Among people, about person has the disease and tests positive. Of the remaining people, about test falsely positive, which is about people.
So among about positive tests, only about is a true positive. The probability is closest to .
Thus, C is the correct answer.