Question

The coach of a soccer team is holding tryouts and can take only 2 more players for the team. There are 8 players trying out. How many different groups of 2 players could possibly be chosen?

Answer 1

64............................

Answer 2

With probability like this, you only need to look at the important details, rather than the "factual fluff".

So, you know that the team can only take 2 more players and that there are 8 players trying out. And what you want to know is how many various groups of those 2 players could be chosen.

All you need to do is use an operation that makes sense.

Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

We're not going to use addition, multiplication or subtraction because they'll just detract and add to what you don't need.

So, we're going to do basic division to solve this problem since you're trying to find out how many teams he can make.

8 ÷ 2 = 4

He can make 4 groups of two players.