Question

Jordan is planning to buy a vehicle. He has the following choices. Type: sedan or SUV Transmission: 5-speed or automatic Color: red, blue, black, green, or silver Top: sunroof or no sunroof Jordan says that he has a total of 2 + 2 + 5 + 2, or 11, possible vehicle choices. What is Jordan’s error?

Answer 1

Jordan incorrectly added the number of choices for each feature to get the total number of vehicle combinations. The correct method is to multiply the number of options in each category together, resulting in 40 possible vehicle combinations.

Step-by-step explanation:

Jordan made an error in calculating the number of possible vehicle choices by simply adding the number of options available for each category. To find the total number of combinations possible, we need to multiply the number of choices in each category. We multiply 2 types of vehicles (sedan, SUV) by 2 types of transmission (5-speed, automatic) by 5 colors (red, blue, black, green, silver) by 2 types of top (sunroof, no sunroof). So the correct total number of combinations is 2 × 2 × 5 × 2, which equals 40 possible vehicle choices.

Answer 2

Answer and step-by-step explanation:

Instead of adding he should have multiplied.

The fundamental counting principle states that to find the total number of choices, we multiply the number of choices for each part of it.

We have 2 choices for type; 2 choices for transmission; 5 choices for color; and 2 choices for top. This gives us

2(2)(5)(2) = 40 different choices.