romitvsingh wrote:How many different four letter words can be formed (the words need not be meaningful) using the letters of the word "MEDITERRANEAN" such that the first letter is E and the last letter is R?
A. 59
B. 11!/2!*2!*2!
C. 56
D. 23
E. 11!/3!*2!*2!*2!
No. of letters in "MEDITERRANEAN" = 13
Now since E and R are fixed at the 1st and last place, so no. of letters left are 11.
We have to select 2 more letters to form a word with 4 letters.
We can have 2 cases:
Case 1: The letters can be the same ones
It can be seen that there are 2 E's, 2 N's and 2 A's in MDITERANEAN
So, the 2 letters can be selected in
3 ways.
Case 2: The letters are different
We can choose the 1st letter in 8 ways and the 2nd one in 7 ways.
Therefore, we can choose the two required letters in 8 * 7 =
56 ways
Therefore, required no. of ways = 3 + 56 = 59
The correct answer is
A.
