Question 127112: A man has 8 pairs of pants, 5 shirts, and 3 ties. How many different outfits can he wear?
I set up the problem as:
8 x 5 x 3 (120 different outfits is what I got)
I don't know if this is correct, my text book is not very forth coming and doesn't explain things very clearly. This question is not from the book, it is one of a set of mixed problems the instructor selects from a pool.
Thanks for your help
Answer by solver91311(24713)   (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website! Your set-up and answer are correct.
Think of it this way:
First he has to decide on a pair of pants and he has 8 different choices. For each of those choices he has a choice of 5 different shirts, so that gives him 8 times 5 = 40 different pant/shirt combinations. (I hope none of the pants are striped and none of the shirts have polka-dots). For each those 40 possibilities, he has 3 different ties he could select, so altogether he has 40 times 3 = 120 different outfits, and some of them may be acceptable to wear in public.
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