Help W/ This Math Question (SAT Q of the DAY)

<p>First, you guys need to start doing SAT question of the day. Even if you don't have time to really study for the SAT, every day you check your email you'll better yourself a little bit! I'm so glad I'm doing it. Now as for my problem:</p>

<p>Question
Of 5 office workers, 3 are to be assigned an office and 2 are to be assigned a cubicle. If 3 of the workers are men and 2 are women, and if those assigned an office are to be chosen at random, what is the probability that the offices will be assigned to 2 of the men and 1 of the women?</p>

<p>Explanation
Of the 5 office workers, 3 are to be assigned an office. This is an example of combinations: to find the number of ways of choosing 3 of the 5 workers, you can count the number of ways of selecting the workers one at a time and then divide by the number of times each group of 3 workers will be repeated.</p>

<p>There are 5 ways of choosing the first worker to get an office. Then there will be 4 ways of choosing the second worker to get an office, and 3 ways of choosing the third worker. This is a total of 5 </p>

<p>Yeah, that was the only SAT Math question I've ever had trouble with. I figured it out by looking at the answers and realizing that all of the other answers were definitely wrong. So I figured it out, but I still have no idea how to do it.</p>

<p>i understand it up to the point of "Therefore, 3 </p>

<p>^I get the 3x2. It's just 3C2 x 2C1 because you need to make sure both conditions are true, so therefore it's 3x2. So 6/10 is the answer->3/5</p>

<p>well this question isn't that bad if you remember some probability stuff</p>

<p>basically, there are 5 people, and 3 are assigned to an office, so the total possible outcome is 5 C 3, which is 10</p>

<p>and there are 3 men, of which two will be chosen, so 3 C 2 = 3</p>

<p>and there are 2 women, of which one will be chosen, so 2 C 1 = 2</p>

<p>since the problem is asking for two men "AND" one women, then you use multiplication</p>

<p>so the final thing is 3 * 2 / 10, which is 3/5</p>

<p>
[quote]
This question uses combinations, because order does not matter. so you do 5C3 on your calculator. the answer is 10. This means there are 10 different ways to group 3 people from a pool of 5 people, when the specific order of the people in the group does not matter.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I understood that but not the rest. :X</p>

<p>how do u do combinations on the ti 83?</p>

<p>You put 5</p>

<p>then go to MATH, move over to PRB and go down to nCr</p>

<p>then put 3</p>

<p>and enter.</p>

<p>= 10</p>

<p>That question was evil... pretty much every single other math Q of the day has been easy enough to get with barely thinking about it, but I had no idea on that one!</p>

<p>Does anybody know if a precalc class covers any probability stuff?</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure itas covered in precal, since I did in in Algebra II</p>

<p>Oh... well at my school Algebra II and precalc are different courses. But I haven't been taught any probability stuff since maybe 6th or 7th grade, so hopefully some of it is coming up...</p>

<p>My Math Studies doesn't cover it (atleast not this and not yet). I only know about nCr because of stupid Academic Decathlon which I quit this semester. XD</p>

<p>So no one else has a good explaination?</p>