Three coins are tossed up in the air, one at a time. What is the probability that two of them will land heads up and one will land tails up?

Explanation

D: Shown below is the sample space of possible outcomes for tossing three coins, one at a time. Since there is a possibility of two outcomes (heads or tails) for each coin, there is a total of 2*2*2=8 possible outcomes for the three coins altogether. Note that H represents heads and T represents tails:

HHH HHT HTT HTH TTT TTH THT THH

Notice that out of the 8 possible outcomes, only 3 of them (HHT, HTH, and THH) meet the desired condition that two coins land heads up and one coin lands tails up. Probability, by definition, is the number of desired outcomes divided by the number of possible outcomes. Therefore, the probability of two heads and one tail is \(\frac{3}{8}\) Choice D.