Math Word Problem- Part A & Part B

Question

Part A

An ice cream stand offers cake cones, waffle cones, or cups to hold ice cream. You can get vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, pistachio, or coffee flavored ice cream. If you order a single scoop, how many different combinations can you make?

Part B

What would be the probability of getting a waffle cone with chocolate ice cream?

Answer 1

For Part A, try drawing a tree diagram.

1. On a piece of paper, write Cake Cones, Waffle Cones, and Cups next to each other horizontally.
2. Under each of the three phrases, draw five lines under each phrase, and write the five flavors under each line. (ex. "Cake Cone" should have fine lines drawn from it, each line labeled a single flavor: First line labeled vanilla, second labeled chocolate, third line labeled strawberry, fourth pistachio, fifth coffee. Repeat this for "Waffle Cone" and "Cups")
3. Count all the lines drawn for all three phrases. If you counted 15, congratulations, that is your answer! You can make 15 combinations with three ice cream holders and five flavors (given that each has one scoop).

For Part B:

Given that we know that there are 15 possibilities, how many times do you see waffle cone and chocolate ice cream appear?

Once. So the possibility of "waffle cone with chocolate ice cream" is 1/15.