Permutation and Combination Tutorial
1. How many multiples of 5 are there from 10 to 95? (Ans: 18)
2. In a city, the bus route numbers consist of a natural number less than 100, followed by one of
the letters A,B,C,D,E and F. How many different bus routes are possible? (Ans: 594)
3. There are 3 questions in a question paper. If the questions have 4,3 and 2 solutions
respectively, find the total number of solutions. (Ans: 24)
4. Consider the word ROTOR. Whichever way you read it, from left to right or from right to
left, you get the same word. Such a word is known as palindrome. Find the maximum
possible number of 5-letter palindromes. (Ans; 17,576)
5. How many 3-digit numbers can be formed with the digits 1,4,7,8 and 9 if the digits are not
repeated? (Ans: 60)
6. Suppose you can travel from a place A to a place B by 3 buses, from place B to place C by 4
buses, from place C to place D by 2 buses and from place D to place E by 3 buses. In how
many ways can you travel from A to E? (Ans: 72)
7. Suppose you want to arrange your English, Hindi, Mathematics, History, Geography and
Science books on a shelf. In how many ways can you do it? (Ans: 720)
8. If you have 6 New Year greeting cards and you want to send them to 4 of your friends, in
how many ways can this be done? (Ans: 360)
9. Suppose 7 students are staying in a hall in a hostel and they are allotted 7 beds. Among them,
Parvin does not want a bed next to Anju because Anju snores. Then, in how many ways can
you allot the beds? (Ans: 3600)
10. In how many ways can an animal trainer arrange 5 lions and 4 tigers in a row so that no two
lions are together? (Ans: 2880)
11. Suppose there are 4 books on fairy tales, 5 novels and 3 plays as in Example 5.3. They have
to be arranged so that the books on fairy tales are together, novels are together and plays are
together, but we no longer require that they should be in a specific order. In how many ways
can this be done? (Ans: 103,680)
12. In how many ways can 4 girls and 5 boys be arranged in a row so that all the four girls are
together? (Ans: 17,280)
13. How many arrangements of the letters of the word ‘BENGALI’ can be made
(i) If the vowels are never together. (Ans: 4,320)
(ii) If the vowels are to occupy only odd places. (Ans: 576)
14. Find the number of subsets of the set {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11} having 4 elements. (Ans: 330)
15. In a box, there are 5 black pens, 3 white pens and 4 red pens. In how many ways can 2 black
pens, 2 white pens and 2 red pens can be chosen? (Ans: 180)
16. A question paper consists of 10 questions divided into two parts A and B. Each part contains
five questions. A candidate is required to attempt six questions in all of which at least 2
should be from part A and at least 2 from part B. In how many ways can the candidate select
the questions if he can answer all questions equally well? (Ans: 200)
17. The Indian Cricket team consists of 16 players. It includes 2 wicket keepers and 5 bowlers. In
how many ways can a cricket eleven be selected if we have to select 1 wicket keeper and at
least 4 bowlers? (Ans: 1092)
COMBINATION AND PERMUTATION PRACTICE PROBLEMS:
1. How many different committees of 3 people can be chosen to work on a special project
from a group of 9 people? 9C3 = 84
2. A coach must choose how to line up his five starters from a team of 12 players. How
many different ways can the coach choose the starters? 12P5 = 95,040
3. John bought a machine to make fresh juice. He has five different fruits: strawberries,
oranges, apples, pineapples, and lemons. If he only uses two fruits, how many different
juice drinks can John make? 5C2 = 10
4. How many different ways you can elect a Chairman and Co-Chairman of a committee if
you have 10 people to choose from. 10P2 = 90
5. There are 25 people who work in an office together. Five of these people are selected to
go together to the same conference in Orlando, Florida. How many ways can they choose
this team of five people to go to the conference? 25C5 = 53,130
6. There are 25 people who work in an office together. Five of these people are selected to
attend five different conferences. The first person selected will go to a conference in
Hawaii, the second will go to New York, the third will go to San Diego, the fourth will
go to Atlanta, and the fifth will go to Nashville. How many such selections are possible?
25P5 = 6,375,600
7. John couldn’t recall the Serial number on his expensive bicycle. He remembered that
there were 6 different digits, none used more than once, but couldn’t remember what
digits were used. He decided to write down all of the possible 6 digit numbers. How
many different possibilities will he have to create? (Perm. N=10 r=2: 151,200)
8. How many different 7-card hands can be chosen from a standard 52-card deck? (perm.
N=52 and r=7: 133,784,560)
9. A disc jockey has to choose three songs for the last few minutes of his evening show. If
there are nine songs that he feels are appropriate for that time slot, then how many ways
can he choose and arrange to play three of those nine songs? (n=9 and r=3: Ans: 504)
