We only need to consider arrangements by gender only. We take the 3 girls and 2 boys to set up the minimum requirements for a success: __GB__GB__G__ Now we have to place the remaining 3 boys in the 4 groups represented by the 4 blanks. This is the number of ordered partitions of 3 things into 4 groups allowing groups of size 0. The number of ordered partitions of n things into r groups is C(n+r-1,r-1), counting groups of 0. So we have n=3, r=4 C(3+4-1,4-1) = C(6,3) = 20 ways to place the remaining boys into those 4 blanks (including leaving some of the blanks empty). Just for illustrative purposes, those 20 arrangements by gender only are: 1. GBGBGBBB 2. GBGBBGBB 3. GBGBBBGB 4. GBGBBBBG 5. GBBGBGBB 6. GBBGBBGB 7. GBBGBBBG 8. GBBBGBGB 9. GBBBGBBG 10. GBBBBGBG 11. BGBGBGBB 12. BGBGBBGB 13. BGBGBBBG 14. BGBBGBGB 15. BGBBGBBG 16. BGBBBGBG 17. BBGBGBGB 18. BBGBGBBG 19. BBGBBGBG 20. BBBGBGBG So the numerator of the desired probability is 20. The denominator is the total number of gender arrangements. We can pick any 3 of the 8 positions to place the 3 girls C(8,3) = 56 ways Answer C(6,3)/C(8,3) = 20/56 = 5/14 Edwin