How can you tell whether a counting problem is a permutation or a combination problem? Give examples to support your answer.

One way to think of it is to think of permutations as the number of arrangements or orderings within a fixed group. For example, if I have five students and I want to figure out how many ways they can sit in five chairs, I’m going to use the permutations formula. First off, the number in the group is fixed. Secondly, I’m looking for how many ways I can “arrange” the students in five chairs.

Combinations, on the other hand, are useful when figuring out how many groups I can form from a larger number of people. For instance, if I’m a basketball coach and I want to find out how many distinct teams I can form based on a group of people, I want to use combinations.

To make sure you understand this important distinction, here are three different scenarios. Your job is not to solve the question but to determine whether you use the combinations or the permutations formula to solve them.    ex:Joan has five panels at home that she wants to paint. She has five different colored paints and intends to paint each panel a different color. How many different ways can she paint the five panels?y-step explanation:

26

step-by-step explanation: