SOLUTION: In how many ways can a president, vice president, and secretary be chosen from a class of 30 students?

In  30*29*28 ways:


Any of 30 students           can be chosen for the president position;

any of remaining 29 students can be chosen for the vice-president position;  and, finally

any of remaining 28 students can be chosen for the secretary position.


It gives you this value.


The order in which they occupy the three positions does matter, so in this problem permutations must be used.