Score band 400-500 · Problem Solving & Data Analysis

Probability and Two-Way Tables drills for 400-500

400500600700800

Targeted practice for students currently scoring in the 400-500 range, drilling exclusively on probability and two-way tables.

What a 400-500 scorer needs from this topic

The 400 to 500 score band on SAT Math is the foundations band. Students scoring here are usually strong on arithmetic but losing easy points to careless setup, missed units, or an unfamiliar SAT phrasing of a familiar idea. Drilling the foundations questions here is the highest leverage thing you can do for your score, because every problem you convert from a guess to a confident solve moves you a measurable number of scaled points. Foundations questions in this band test one idea at a time, with friendly numbers and short stems. Treat them as warmups for the rest of the section: do them untimed first, write every step on paper, and check that your final value answers the actual question being asked, not the value of x.

For Probability and Two-Way Tables specifically, students in the 400-500 band need to focus on the question patterns the College Board uses at this difficulty level. Compute probabilities from tables and basic counting. The questions below are pulled from the ScoreReady question bank and filtered to the 400-500 band based on difficulty calibration that matches publicly released College Board practice materials.

Drill these untimed first. Once you can produce a clean worked solution on paper for every question without notes, switch to timed mode and aim for under 75 seconds per question. That pace is roughly the average time per question on the actual SAT Math section, and it leaves time for the harder questions you will see at the end of each module.

Practice set

  1. 400-500 easy Simple Probability

    A school surveyed students about a proposed schedule change. Of 35 boys and 58 girls who said yes, and 42 boys and 70 girls who said no, a student is selected at random. What is the probability the student is a girl who said yes?

    1. A 7/41
    2. B 93/205
    3. C 58/205
    4. D 58/93
    Worked solution

    Answer: C — 58/205

    Total students = 35 + 58 + 42 + 70 = 205. Girls who said yes = 58. Probability = 58/205 = 58/205.

  2. A school surveyed students about a proposed schedule change. 46 boys and 59 girls said yes; 49 boys and 55 girls said no. Given that a randomly chosen student said yes, what is the probability the student is a boy?

    1. A 59/105
    2. B 46/105
    3. C 46/209
    4. D 105/209
    Worked solution

    Answer: B — 46/105

    Conditional probability uses only the subset that said yes as the denominator. That subset is 46 + 59 = 105. Boys in that subset = 46. Probability = 46/105 = 46/105.

  3. A school surveyed students about a proposed schedule change. Of 76 boys and 80 girls who said yes, and 59 boys and 36 girls who said no, a student is selected at random. What is the probability the student is a girl who said yes?

    1. A 80/251
    2. B 156/251
    3. C 20/39
    4. D 76/251
    Worked solution

    Answer: A — 80/251

    Total students = 76 + 80 + 59 + 36 = 251. Girls who said yes = 80. Probability = 80/251 = 80/251.

  4. A school surveyed students about a proposed schedule change. 21 boys and 42 girls said yes; 28 boys and 61 girls said no. Given that a randomly chosen student said yes, what is the probability the student is a boy?

    1. A 21/152
    2. B 63/152
    3. C 1/3
    4. D 2/3
    Worked solution

    Answer: C — 1/3

    Conditional probability uses only the subset that said yes as the denominator. That subset is 21 + 42 = 63. Boys in that subset = 21. Probability = 21/63 = 1/3.

  5. 400-500 easy Simple Probability

    A school surveyed students about a proposed schedule change. Of 51 boys and 78 girls who said yes, and 24 boys and 39 girls who said no, a student is selected at random. What is the probability the student is a girl who said yes?

    1. A 43/64
    2. B 17/64
    3. C 13/32
    4. D 26/43
    Worked solution

    Answer: C — 13/32

    Total students = 51 + 78 + 24 + 39 = 192. Girls who said yes = 78. Probability = 78/192 = 13/32.

  6. A school surveyed students about a proposed schedule change. 28 boys and 70 girls said yes; 21 boys and 70 girls said no. Given that a randomly chosen student said yes, what is the probability the student is a boy?

    1. A 2/7
    2. B 5/7
    3. C 14/27
    4. D 4/27
    Worked solution

    Answer: A — 2/7

    Conditional probability uses only the subset that said yes as the denominator. That subset is 28 + 70 = 98. Boys in that subset = 28. Probability = 28/98 = 2/7.

How to use these drills to climb a band

Climbing from one score band to the next requires a different study mix than climbing within a band. Within a band, you are mostly fixing careless errors and pattern-recognizing the question types you already understand. Climbing to the next band means adding new question types to your toolbox — patterns you currently recognize but cannot solve fluently. The 700–800 set in this drill is exactly that toolbox for students currently in the 600–700 range.

The single most reliable indicator that you are ready to move up a band is being able to explain a worked solution to someone else, in your own words, without referring to notes. Practice this with one classmate or one parent per week. The act of teaching exposes the gaps your timed solves did not.