how many ways are there to fill five committe positions

Question

Oakwood Middle School is going to select a committee. The committee will have a faculty member, a male student, a female student, a parent, and a school board member.

Here are the positions and the people interested in each.

PositionPeople interested
Faculty member	Ms. Hayes, Mrs. Lee
Male student	Felipe, Austin, Deandre, Manuel
Female student	Carmen, Maria, Keiko, Lena
Parent	Ms. Nguyen, Mr. Miller, Mrs. Peterson, Mr. Watson
School board member	Mrs. Tran, Mr. Evans

Based on this list, how many ways are there to fill the five committee positions?

Answer 1

Hi Dee,

You would multiply the number of options for each position, and that would give you how many ways the five committee positions can be filled:

2 (for faculty member options) x 4 (male student options) x 4 (female student options) x 4 (parent options) x 2 (school board member options) = 256 different ways to fill the five committee positions