Mutually Exclusive

Definition

Mutually Exclusive in plain English

Two events are mutually exclusive when they can't both happen at the same time, one happening completely blocks the other. A single coin flip landing heads and landing tails are mutually exclusive: you get one or the other, never both on the same flip. In math shorthand, the chance of both happening together is zero, written P(A and B) = 0. Compare that to "raining" and "a Tuesday," which aren't mutually exclusive because they can easily overlap.

Learn these first

• Correlation
• Passage Map

Related GMAT terms

• Argument
• Assumption
• Combination
• Conditional
• Contrapositive
• Correlation
• Factor
• Function
• Inductive Argument
• Modus Ponens