level1 : 3 options
level 2: 4 options.....and so on

so total possible number of games = 3x4x4x4x4

the question is asking for different possible games and not scenarios ,
hence e was my choice.

can someone explain how OA is right?

gmataug08 wrote:level1 : 3 options
level 2: 4 options.....and so on

so total possible number of games = 3x4x4x4x4

the question is asking for different possible games and not scenarios ,
hence e was my choice.

can someone explain how OA is right?

3+4+4+4+4 = 19

all games are different.

gmataug08 wrote:A computer game has five difficulty levels. In each level you can choose among four different scenarios except for the first level, where you can choose among three scenarios only. How many different games are possible?

a) 18
b) 19
c) 20
d) 21
e) None of the above

I'd be interested to know the source for this question (it's always good to post your source, some are more reliable than others), since it's possible to interpret it two different ways.

One interpretation is that of the OP - that we play one scenario from each level to complete the game. However, based on the answers given, that interpretation is very unlikely to be correct, since although we could pick "(e)", the answer you got isn't even in the ballpark of the other answers.

The other interpretation is that of Logitech, which must be correct given the choices - that this isn't a multilevel game in which you do one scenario from each level; rather, the entire game is 1 scenario from 1 level.

Under this interpretation, we simply have 3+4+4+4+4 = 19 choices.

got this from probability prep material for gmat (not a branded source )