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Manager
Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 119
Followers: 1
Kudos [?]:
5
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Question Stats:
0% (00:00) correct
 0% (00:00) wrong based on 0 sessions
Five contestants representing five different countries advance ti the final of a fencing championship. All thins being equal, how many possibilities are there with respect to how a first place and a second medal can be awarded?
A) 25
B) 20
C) 45
D) 100
E) 120
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Current Student
Joined: 03 Aug 2006
Posts: 119
Location: Next to Google
Schools: Haas School of Business
Followers: 3
Kudos [?]:
66
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The answer is B
Direct Solution:
5 \times 4 = 20
Simplified solution:
First find the number of ways the first place can be won. As there are 5 finalists, there are exactly 5 possibilities for the first place.
Next, the number of ways second place can be won for each first place winner is exactly 4 as a finalist cannot be in both first and second place.
\Rightarrow the first and second places can be chosen in 5 \times 4or 20 different ways.
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Manager
Joined: 25 May 2009
Posts: 145
Concentration: Finance
GMAT Date: 12-16-2011
Followers: 1
Kudos [?]:
25
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Use permutation because order matters.
5P2 = 5!/3! = 5*4 = 20
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Manager
Joined: 29 May 2008
Posts: 119
Followers: 1
Kudos [?]:
5
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It was an easy problem, you know that night when I was doing the problems I made so many that it was hard for me to distinguish how simple this problem was, thanks a lot
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