Question

Student Engineers Council at an Indiana college has one student representative from each of the five engineering majors (civil, electrical, industrial, materials, and mechanical). Compute how many ways a president, a vice president, and a secretary can be selected.

Answer 1

A president, a vice president, and a secretary can be selected in 60 ways.

Explanation:

The order in which the people are chosen is important(first president, second vice president and third secretary), which means that the permutations formula is used to solve this question.

Permutations formula:

The number of possible permutations of x elements from a set of n elements is given by the following formula:

`P_((n,x)) = (n!)/((n-x)!)`

In this question:

3 students from a set of 5, so:

`P_((5,3)) = (5!)/(2!) = 5*4*3 = 60`

A president, a vice president, and a secretary can be selected in 60 ways.