ettenetur
How many positive numbers with two or more digits can be formed with the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 so that in every such number, each digit is used at most once and the digits appear in the ascending order?
A. 500
B. 501
C. 502
D. 503
E. 504
This is a bit confusing because of the verbiage. It says each digit must appear at most once which is different from “appear only once”.
If I understand the question correctly, it says that the digits from 1-9 can also not appear in the numbers.
In this context, “at most once” means a digit can appear once or not at all, but never more than once. So yes, you’re correct: we can’t repeat digits, but we also obviously don’t have to and cannot use every digit in each number.
Now, since the digits in the number must be in ascending order, each valid number corresponds directly to choosing a subset of the digits {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, and then writing them in ascending order.
Total subsets of 9 digits = 2^9 = 512, since each digit has two options: either it appears in the number or it does not.
Subsets of size 0 (empty set) and size 1 (single-digit numbers) are excluded, because the question asks for numbers with two or more digits.
That leaves 512 - 1 (empty set) - 9 (single-digit numbers) = 502.
So the answer is 502 (C).