ericnkem
A certain company employs 6 senior officers and 4 junior officers. If a committee is to be created, that is made up of 3 senior officers and 1 junior officer, how many different committee are possible?
A. 8
B. 24
C. 58
D. 80
E. 210
Take the task of creating the 4-person committee and break it into stages.
Stage 1: Select 3 senior officers
Since the order of the selected officers does not matter, we can use combinations.
We can select 3 officers from 6 senior officers 6C3 ways (=
20 ways)
Stage 2: Select 1 junior officer
There are 4 junior officers, so we can select 1 officer in
4 ways
By the Fundamental Counting Principle (FCP) we can complete the two stages (and thus select members for the committee) in
(20)(4) ways (= 80 ways)
Answer: D
Note: the FCP can be used to solve the MAJORITY of counting questions on the GMAT. So, be sure to learn it.
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