Question 548246: How do you distinguish permutations from combinations? Like words in the problem to look for?
Answer by mathie123(224)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! When dealing with permutations - ORDER MATTERS
When dealing with combination - ORDER DOES NOT MATTER
There are no words that you can really look for. But you just think to yourself if order matters or not :
For example- If I pick 2 people to be on a student council, one to be a president one a treasurer, order matters.
Say if Sue was president and Joe was treasurer
this is different then
If Joe is president and Sue is treasurer. ((SO ORDER MATTERS)
Another example- If I am picking 5 people to make a team, everybody I pick is on the team... it doesn't matter what order I pick them in. (So ORDER DOES NOT MATTER).
Just takes practice... definately a tricky concept to get through though. Le tme know if you are still unsure
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