The Carson family will purchase three used cars. There are

Bunuel, I don't understand the logic behind why you grouped it like that.
in MGMAT they said to use the slot method, first car has 8 choices, second has 6, third has 6. to account for overcounting we divide by the factorial 3!. same number but i understand that logic a little better but i am inclined to use your method on the test.
Can you explain?

Bunnel,

I tried solving it through 8C3 = 56, as there are 8 options available Model A with 4 colors, and Model B with 4 colors, and we have to select 3 out of those..Can you please explain what is wrong in this approach ?

Thanks!

Bunuel, I don't understand the logic behind why you grouped it like that.
in MGMAT they said to use the slot method, first car has 8 choices, second has 6, third has 6. to account for overcounting we divide by the factorial 3!. same number but i understand that logic a little better but i am inclined to use your method on the test.
Can you explain?

Bunuel, Calgreg, if I follow the MGMAT method I don't understand what over counting they are talking about. I understand the 8 for the first choice, 6 for the second, and 4 for the third, but why do the division afterwards?

Bunuel, Karishma,

You gotta help me out here, m getting shaky on all my Combinatorics concepts.

I approached the problem as

\(8C8 * 7C6 * 4C1\)

What exactly m I doing wrong?

I have no idea how you got 8C8, 7C6 and 4C1.

I could have understood 8C1*6C1*4C1 (I have explained why this doesn't work in the post above)

The best way to solve it is by first selecting 3 colors out of the given 4 in 4C3 ways. (say, you got black, red and green)
Now for each color, you have 2 choices - model A or B
So you select a model in 2 ways.
No of ways of selecting the 3 cars = 4C3 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 32

Well, my logic was

The number of ways of selecting r objects from n different objects is nCr.

We have 8 options and can select either of the 8 as the first - 8C8

One car is gone and one becomes a forbidden choice so we have 7 options and need to select either of the 6 as the first - 7C6

Two cars are gone and two becomes a forbidden choice so we have 6 options and need to select either of the 4 as the first - 6C4

I reckon that my understanding of Combinatorics logic is fundamentally flawed. Appreciate if you could tell me where and what

Yes, I think you need to go through a PnC book from scratch. You can check out the Veritas Combinatorics and Probability book at amazon.

"The number of ways of selecting r objects from n different objects is nCr" - This is correct. You need to apply it correctly now.

As for this question,

We have 8 options and can select either of the 8 as the first - 8C8
--- We have 8 options and we need to select 1 out of those 8. So n = 8 and r = 1. This gives us 8C1 ways. (Say you selected BlackA)

One car is gone and one becomes a forbidden choice so we have 7 options and need to select either of the 6 as the first - 7C6
--- Now one car is gone and we cannot select another one. Now we have 6 cars to choose from and we again have to select 1. So n = 6 and r = 1. We get 6C1 ways (Say you selected GreenB)

Two cars are gone and two becomes a forbidden choice so we have 6 options and need to select either of the 4 as the first - 6C4
--- Now 2 cars are gone and 2 are forbidden. You can choose out of only 4 cars and you have to select only 1. Again, n = 4 and r = 1 so we get 4C1 (Say you selected RedA)

You select 3 cars in 8C1 * 6C1 * 4C1 ways but there is a flaw here. You selected BlackA, GreenB and RedA.
In another case, you could have selected RedA first, then BlackA and then GreenB. This combination is the same as the previous one but we are counting it separately. The point is we have arranged the cars as first, second and third which we should not do since it is a group.

As I said before, you might want to start with fundamentals from a book.

Hi Karishma,

I made a similar error in the beginning and looking back at it, it might have been because I might have tried to mix in "probability" into the combinatorics problem.

If you treat it as a probability, wouldn't the above posters approach be correct?

The best way to solve it is by first selecting 3 colors out of the given 4 in 4C3 ways. (say, you got black, red and green)
Now for each color, you have 2 choices - model A or B
So you select a model in 2 ways.
No of ways of selecting the 3 cars = 4C3 * 2 * 2 * 2 = 32

My doubt was

Can you please explain why we have multiplied 2*2*2 with 4C3.

what i did to solve this was 4C3 * 2C1 where 2C1 are for selection of model . Can you please let me know what i have missed here.

Thanks

Hello,
I have solved the problem in the following way. From the question I came to know that there are two categories of cars of 4 different colors each. So, in total there are 8 cars. We need to select 3 cars of different colors. So, we can do it in two ways. We can select 2 cars from category A and one from B------> C(4,2)* C(2,1) = 12 ----> C(2,1) for B as we have already selected two colors from A so we are left with the rest 2 colors and we have selected 1 from them.

Secondly, we can select 1 car from A and 2 cars from B-----> C(4,1) * C(3,2) = 12

Therefore, total ways of combinations = 12+12 = 24. But, unfortunately this is not the correct answer. Kindly tell me where I went wrong.

Thank You in advance.

What about selecting all three cars from A or all three cars from B?

All three cars can have the same model. The only constraint is that they need to be of different colors.

Select all from A - In 4C3 = 4 ways
Select all from B - In 4C3 = 4 ways

Total = 24+4+4 = 32 ways

Hi Karishma,
Need some help here.

I tried the method given above as well.But I'm confused regarding this.If I'm selecting 2 cars of Model A in 4c2 ways and correspondingly I select I car from Model B in 2c1 ways(2 colors removed because already selected in A) then why are not taking the cases other way around i.e 2 cars of Model B in 4c2 and 1 car of B in 2c1.After all,they are all different cars.Won't that be added to the combinations as well. In that case, the number of combinations would become (12+12+4)*2=56 ways..Kindly put your thoughts here.