Mathematics: Combinations and Counting

Question

A high school graduating class has 400 members. The principal must select student chairs of (1) graduation ceremony committee, (2) senior gift committee, and (3) senior outing committee. If no student can chair more than one committee, how many ways can the principal select these chairs?

Answer 1

As we consider which committee one chairs to matter, we use permutations, not combinations. P(400,3) = 400 * 399 * 398 = 63520800 . Excel allows you to solve this using =PERMUT(400,3)

Statistical calculators should have functions to do this, as well.