Question

There are 12 people on a basketball team. The coach chooses 3 players to play

three different positions. How many ways can the players be chosen?

Answer 1

There are 12 ways to choose the first player, 11 ways to choose the second player, and 10 ways to choose the third player. However, this counts each group of 3 players 3 times, since the order in which the players are chosen doesn't matter. Therefore, the number of ways to choose 3 players from 12 is

3×2×1

12×11×10

​

=220.

Explanation: