Oh what fun it is to blog!

So, today we're going to learn about the counting principle. It's really easy if you think about it. I'm going to go straight into examples because it's easier to see that way.

Example 1. How many ways can 5 people stand in a line?

First thing you should do is draw 5 little dashes and put how many people could be in that spot. So it would be 5 4 3 2 1. Now you have to multiply them together. This is also the same thing as saying 5!. You answer would be 120.

Example 2. How many ways can you answer 5 true false questions?

This one is a little bit different. Since you can have either true or false you would do that number raised to how many questions there is. So you would get 2^5 which is 32. 32 I your answer

Example 3. How many sweater/pants combinations can you have with 2 pants and 4 sweaters?

On this problem all you have to do is multiply the two number together. So you answer is 8.

That's about it for counting principle.

--Carley