You are playing a game of Scrabble and have the 5 A tiles, 3 E tiles, 1 Z tile, 2 M tiles, 3 L tiles, and 1 Y tile to choose from. What is the probability that you choose M or L on your next draw?

A) 2/75

B) 3/20

C) 1/5

D) 1/3

So, what we need to do is find out the chance you will pull an M or an L out of the scrabble bag on your next turn.

Our first step is finding out how many pieces total are in the bag. This will become the denominator in our answer. To do this, we just need to add up all the pieces we know are in the bag! From the question, we know there are 5 As, 3 Es, 1 Z, 2 Ms, 3 Ls, and 1 Y left in the bag. So 5 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 1 should give us 15 total pieces to pick from.

Next, we need to know the total of Ls and Ms left in the bag that we want to pick. This number will be the numerator in our answer. From the question, we know there are 2 Ms and 3 Ls in the bag. Because 2+3 = 5, that means out final fraction for this problem should be 5/15!

Unfortunately, that is not an actual answer for the question, so that means we have to simplify by finding the biggest number that goes into both the top and bottom of our fraction. To get 5, we can only use the numbers 1 and 5. To get 15, we can use 1, 3, 5, and 15. From this, it looks like both the top and the bottom are divisible by 5. When we divide the top by 5 we end up with a 1, and when we divide the bottom by 5 we end up with a 3, meaning our final fraction is D) 1/3!