A standard deck of 52 playing cards, 13 with hearts, 13 with diamonds, 13 with...

The probability of a simple event is calculated by dividing the number of favorable outcomes by the total number of equally likely outcomes. A standard deck contains 52 cards. The favorable outcomes are the hearts, and the question states that there are 13 hearts in the deck. Therefore, the probability of drawing a heart is 13/52. This fraction simplifies by dividing both numerator and denominator by 13, giving 1/4. Option A, 1/13, would incorrectly treat one card as favorable out of 13 rather than 13 favorable hearts out of 52 total cards. Option B, 1/2, would imply that half the deck consists of hearts, which is false. Option D, 1/3, does not correspond to the four equally sized suits in a standard deck. Since the four suits are equally represented, each suit has probability one out of four. References/topics from the Study Guide: theoretical probability, equally likely outcomes, fractions, sample spaces.

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