Question

a pharmaceutical company is developing a drug test to see if they can identify a certain pharmaceutical medicine in a persons system. a study was done on 1000 people to determine whether the test was effective or not. what is the probability a person will get a false positive from taking this test?

drug test effectiveness

	is taking the medicine	is not taking the medicine	total
tested negative	60	301	361
total	650	350	1000

• 91%
• 4.9%
• 86%
• 14%

Explanation:

Identify false positive and total relevant population

$$
LATEXBLOCK0
$$

Calculate the probability of a false positive

$$ P(\text{False Positive}) = \frac{49}{1000} = 0.049 $$

Convert the probability to a percentage

$$ 0.049 \times 100\% = 4.9\% $$

Answer:

• (A) 91%
• (B) 4.9% (Correct answer)
• (C) 86%
• (D) 14%