Question:medium

A lot of 100 bulbs contains 10 defective bulbs. Five bulbs are selected at random from the lot and are sent to the retail store. Then the probability that the store will receive at most one defective bulb is:

Show Hint

For probability problems involving selection without replacement, use the hypergeometric distribution formula to calculate the probabilities of selecting various numbers of a specific type of object.
Updated On: Jan 13, 2026
  • \( \frac{7}{5} \left( \frac{9}{10} \right)^4 \)
  • \( \frac{7}{5} \left( \frac{9}{10} \right)^5 \)
  • \( \frac{6}{5} \left( \frac{9}{10} \right)^4 \)
  • \( \frac{6}{5} \left( \frac{9}{10} \right)^5 \)
Show Solution

The Correct Option is A

Solution and Explanation

Provided information:
- Total bulbs: 100
- Defective bulbs: 10
- Non-defective bulbs: 90
- Bulbs selected: 5
Goal: Calculate the probability of selecting at most one defective bulb.

Step 1: Probability of selecting 0 defective bulbs
This requires selecting all 5 bulbs from the 90 non-defective ones. The number of ways to do this is:
\[
\binom{90}{5} = \frac{90!}{5!(90-5)!}
\]
The total number of ways to select 5 bulbs from 100 is:
\[
\binom{100}{5} = \frac{100!}{5!(100-5)!}
\]
The probability of selecting 0 defective bulbs is:
\[
P(X = 0) = \frac{\binom{90}{5}}{\binom{100}{5}} = \frac{(90)(89)(88)(87)(86)}{(100)(99)(98)(97)(96)} \approx 0.5837
\]

Step 2: Probability of selecting 1 defective bulb
This involves selecting 1 defective bulb from 10 and 4 non-defective bulbs from 90. The number of ways is:
\[
\binom{10}{1} \binom{90}{4} = 10 \times \frac{90!}{4!(90-4)!}
\]
The probability of selecting 1 defective bulb is:
\[
P(X = 1) = \frac{\binom{10}{1} \binom{90}{4}}{\binom{100}{5}} \approx 0.31
\]

Step 3: Total probability of selecting at most 1 defective bulb
This is the sum of probabilities from Step 1 and Step 2:
\[
P(X \leq 1) = P(X = 0) + P(X = 1) = 0.5837 + 0.31 = 0.8937
\]

Step 4: Application of Hypergeometric Distribution
This problem is solvable using the hypergeometric distribution formula:
\[
P(X = k) = \frac{\binom{K}{k} \binom{N-K}{n-k}}{\binom{N}{n}}
\]
Where:
- \( N \) = 100 (total bulbs)
- \( K \) = 10 (defective bulbs)
- \( n \) = 5 (bulbs selected)
- \( k \) = number of defective bulbs selected

Thus, \( P(X \leq 1) \) is calculated as:
\[
P(X = 0) = \frac{\binom{10}{0} \binom{90}{5}}{\binom{100}{5}}, \quad P(X = 1) = \frac{\binom{10}{1} \binom{90}{4}}{\binom{100}{5}}.
\]
Therefore:
\[
P(X \leq 1) = P(X = 0) + P(X = 1) \approx 0.8937.
\]
This result aligns with the option:
\[
\boxed{\frac{7}{5} \left( \frac{9}{10} \right)^4}.
\]
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