Question

A bag contains 5 apples and 3 oranges. if you select 4 pieces of fruit without looking, how many ways can you get 4 apples?

Answer 1

5 ways

Explanation:

I got it correct on founders edtell

Answer 2

Every time (the four times) that you select a fruit it has to be an apple: the first piece be an apple, so as the second, the third and the fourth pieces.

That is becasue if you do not select an apple on any of the selections then you will not have selected 4 apples, so you do not have any chance to select a different fruit.

Now, given that there are 5 apples, you can combine them in 5C4 ways:

5C4 = 5! / [(4!) (5-4)! ] = 5! / [4! * 1!] = 5 * 4! / 4! = 5

Answer: 5 ways.