Carol is having friends over to watch home movies

lheiannie07 wrote:Carol is having friends over to watch home movies. She has 6 reels of home movies, but she and her friends have time to watch only 3 of them. Carol must decide which reels to watch and in what order. How many different orderings does Carol have from which to choose?

A. 120
B. 96
C. 60
D. 36
E. 20

How will i start solving it?

OA A

With the usage of the phrase, "in what order," this question falls into the category of Permutation since the order is important.

The number of different orderings = 6P3 = 6.5.4 = 120.

The correct answer: A

Hope this helps!

-Jay
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Hi lheiannie07,

We're told that Carol has 6 reels of home movies, but there's only enough time to watch 3 of them. We're asked for the number of different orderings of 3 films to choose. Since the ORDER of the reels matters, this is a Permutation question.

For the 1st reel, there are 6 options. Once we choose one...
For the 2nd reel, there are 5 options. Once we choose one...
For the 3rd reel, there are 4 options.

Thus, there are (6)(5)(4) = 120 possible orders

Final Answer: A

GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich