Worked example 10: Choices without repetition

QUESTION
A take-away has a 4-piece lunch special which consists of a sandwich, soup, dessert
and drink for R 25,00. They offer the following choices for:
Sandwich: chicken mayonnaise, cheese and tomato, tuna mayonnaise, ham and let-
tuce
Soup: tomato, chicken noodle, vegetable
Dessert: ice-cream, piece of cake
Drink: tea, coffee, Coke, Fanta, Sprite
How many possible meals are there?
SOLUTION
Step 1: Determine how many parts to the meal there are
There are 4 parts: sandwich, soup, dessert and drink.
Step 2: Identify how many choices there are for each part
Meal component Sandwich Soup Dessert Drink
Number of choices 4 3 2 5
Step 3: Use the fundamental counting principle to determine how many different
meals are possible
4 3 2 5 = 120
So there are 120 possible meals.
In the previous example, there were a different number of options for each choice. But
what happens when the number of choices is unchanged each time you choose?
For example, if a coin is ipped three times, what is the total number of different
results? Each time a coin is ipped, there are two possible outcomes, namely heads
or tails. The coin is ipped 3 times. We can use a tree diagram to determine the total
number of possible outcomes:
H
T
H
T
H
T
H
T
H
T
H
T
H
T
From the tree diagram, we can see that there is a total of 8 different possible outcomes.
426 10.4. The fundamental counting principle