COUNTING

Fundamental Counting Principle

To answer any question starting ‘How many…?’ we need an efficient

method of counting.
For example: counting the balls in a box, you can take them out one at
a time counting 1,2,3,…as you go.
However there are many situations where this is not possible.
 Example

● Suppose for a meal you had a choice of two soups,

followed by the choice of chicken or meat or fish, followed
by a choice to two desserts. How many possible meal
combinations are there?
 Chicken Cake
Ice-cream
Pumpkin Meat Cake
Ice-cream
Fish Cake
Ice-cream
Chicken Cake
Ice-cream
Beef Cake
Meat
Ice-cream
Fish Cake
Ice-cream

For each of the branched in turn we can see that there are 12 different
meal combinations
 

After the first choice between two soups there are 3 main courses to choose

between, given a total of 6 () possible combinations. When dessert is then

chosen, each of the previous 6 combinations can be followed but 1 of 2 desserts,

so there are a total of 12 () meal combinations.

The Multiplication Principle

If there are n ways of doing one task, m ways of doing another, l ways of doing

yet another task…

Then the number of different ways of doing all the tasks is:
 Complete the Following

1. A multiple choice examination has 30 questions, each of which has a choice of four different possible answers.

In how many different ways can this examination be answered?

2. A company needs to appoint an accountant, a secretary, and a security guard. There are two applicants for the

accountant’s job, for applicants for secretary and 8 applicants for security guard. In how many different ways

could the three appointments be made?

3. 8 athletes run a 100m race. Gold silver and bonze medals are awarded to the first three contestants to finish (in

order). How many possible lists of medal winners are there?

4. In a certain Caribbean island, car registration plates consists of two letters of the alphabet (excluding I and O)

followed by three digits from 0 to 9. How many different registration plates are available (letters and digits may

be repeated)?
A multiple choice examination has 30 questions, each of which has a choice of four different

possible answers. In how many different ways can this examination be answered?

●  
● Each question has four different answers

● Therefore this question can be answered in different ways.

A company needs to appoint an accountant, a secretary, and a security guard. There are two

applicants for the accountant’s job, four applicants for secretary and 8 applicants for security

guard. In how many different ways could the three appointments be made?

●  
● The accountant could be chosen in 2 ways.

● The secretary could be chosen in 4 ways.

● The security guard could be chosen in 8 ways.

● the 3 appointments could be made in different ways

8 athletes run a 100m race. Gold silver and bonze medals are awarded to the first three contestants to

finish (in order). How many possible lists of medal winners are there?

●  
● The gold medallist could be any of the 8 runners ()

● There are now 7 runners left who might finish second or to get the silver medal ()

● Now there are 6 possible candidates for the bronze medal ()

● Therefore the number of possible list of medal winners is therefore

In a certain Caribbean island, car registration plates consists of two letters of the alphabet (excluding I
and O) followed by three digits from 0 to 9. How many different registration plates are available
(letters and digits may be repeated)?

● The first letter can be chosen from 24

● The second letter can be chosen from 24

● The first digit can be chosen from 10, so can each of the other two.

● Therefore the number of registration plates available are 576,000

 

The Addition Principle

If an item is to bee chosen from anyone of k disjoint (mutually

exclusive) sets, and the first set contains items, the second set

contains items and the kth set contains items, then the number of

different possible choices that can be made is

 EXAMPLE

Sun Island College has 4 sixth form classes. There are 55 students in 12 Arts, 49 students
in 12 Science, 51 students in 13 Arts and 45 students in 12 Science.
A sixth form student must be chosen to represent the college at a conference. In how many
ways can he/she be chosen if:
● The Student must be an Arts student.
● The student must be a Science Student.
● Any 6th former can be chosen
Sun Island College has 4 sixth form classes. There are 55 students in 12 Arts, 49 students in 12 Science, 51
students in 13 Arts and 45 students in 13 Science.
A sixth form student must be chosen to represent the college at a conference. In how many ways can he/she be
chosen if:
a. The Student must be an Arts student.
b. The student must be from grade 13
c. Any 6th former can be chosen

 a. There are Arts student, so there are 106 possible choices

 b. There are grade 13 students, so there are 96 possible choices

 c. There are sixth formers, so there are 200 possible choices