Hi jim441,
The 'style' of the question that you are asking about heavily implies that you are dealing with a COMBINATION question (if you are forming groups of books/articles to read, then the order in which you read them does not matter). In this situation, the proper calculation would be:
(5c2)(3c2)
IF you were dealing with a situation in which the order of the items DID matter, then the prompt would almost certainly include information to define those limitations. For example, it might state, "how many arrangements of books/articles can be made if the two novels are read first and last?"
GMAT assassins aren't born, they're made,
Rich
Contact Rich at: [email protected]