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A photo is being taken of Central High School's nine-member wrestling team. The team will stand in two rows, with the five shortest in the front row. The coach is also in the picture, in the middle of the back row. One of the taller boys is known to misbehave; to keep him from disrupting the photo session, he is placed next to the coach. How many possible arrangements of people are there for the photo?

A. 24
B. 30
C. 720
D. 1440
E. 2880



For the purposes of easiness i assign the letters to each type of people:
S - shorter guys
T - taller guys
M - misbehaving guy
C - coach

So our arrangements: for shorter guys is SSSSS = 5! is the total combination since the first guy could be put in 5 ways, second in 4, third in 3 etc. 5*4*3*2*1
In the back row we have two cases TMCTT and TTCMT in both cases CM are fixed because coach has to be in the center, so only other 3 T will be changing their places. There are 3 places for 3 T, so 3!=6.
Now we need to find the total number of combinations possible, we multiply 5! to 3! and we get 720. But considering that there are two possible ways for upper row we multiply the result by 2 and get 1440. Answer is D.
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There are basically two groups.
A group of 5 shorter players, which can be arranged themselves in 5! ways in front row
A group of 4 taller players, of which one player who is mischievous would stand right next to the coach. Remaining 3 taller players can be arranged themselves in 3! ways.

The coach will be in the middle of the taller players and the mischievous player can stand at right or at left of the coach. So we have to consider both these scenarios.

Arrangement of 5 shorter players in front row AND Arrangement of 3 taller players in back row(when mischievous player is to the immediate left of the coach) OR Arrangement of 5 shorter players in front row AND Arrangement of 3 taller players in back row(when mischievous player is to the immediate right of the coach)

We know in Permutations, Combinations, and Probability, AND stands for Multiplication and OR stands for Addition

Arrangement of 5 shorter players in front row * Arrangement of 3 taller players in back row(while mischievous player is to the immediate left of the coach) + Arrangement of 5 shorter players in front row * Arrangement of 3 taller players in back row(while mischievous player is to the immediate right of the coach)

5! * 3! + 5! * 3! ----------> 2(5!3!) -------> 1440 ------Choice D
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I can't seem to get the correct answer. I'm trying to solve this using the SLOT method.

Here's what I did:

Sol'n 1 (front row)
9*8*7*6*5/5!

Sol'n 2 (second row)
4*3*2/3!

Sol'n 3 (coach and misbehaved boy)
2 possible outcomes (to the left and right of the coach who is in the middle)

Multiplying the 3 sol'ns, I got 1,008 arrangements. How do I get the correct answer?
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First row 5 short ones can be arranged in 5! ways
Second row has 2 ways (mischievous guy on either side of the coach)
Rest 3 can be arranged in 3! ways

So 5!x3!x2
1440 ways.­
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