PRACTICE QUESTIONS

Product rule /Sum Rule

1.

A student can choose a computer project from one of 3 lists. The lists contain 23, 15
and 19 possible projects respectively. How many ways a student can choose a
project?

2.

How many ways can we get a (i) a sum of 4 or 8 (ii) even sum when two
distinguishable dice are rolled?

3.

Problem 2 when two indistinguishable dice are rolled?

4.

How many ways are there to pick a man & a woman who are not married from 30
married couple?

5.

In a group of 8 men and 9 women we can pick one man and one woman in how
many ways?

6.

Out of nine different pairs of shoes, in how many ways could I choose a right
shoe and a left shoe, which should not form a pair?

7.

If n distinguishable dice are rolled, how many possible outcomes are there

8.

From a deck of playing cards in how many ways can we draw

(i)
a heart or a spade
(ii)
Heart or an ace
(iii) Ace or a king
(iv)
A card numbered 2 through 10
(v)
A numbered card or a king

9.

How many licence plates with 3 english letters followed by 4 digits can be formed
(i)
if repetitions of letters and digits are allowed
(ii)
if only letters can be repeated
(iii) if only digits can be repeated
(iv)
If no repetitions are allowed

10. How many different license plates are there that involve 1, 2 or 3 letters followed by
1, 2,3 or 4 digits?
11. How many bit strings of length n are there?
12. How many bit strings of length n are there starting with 1?
13. How many n-digits integers (n > 1) are there?
(i) Which are even?
(ii) Which do not have the digit 0?
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(iii) Which do not contain the digit 5?

14. How many 3 digit numbers can be formed using the digits 1, 3, 4,5,6,8 & 9? How
many 3 digit numbers can be formed if no digit can be repeated?
15. How many 2-digit or 3-digit numbers can be formed using the digits 1, 3, 4,5,6,8 &
9?
16. How many numbers can be formed using 1, 3, 4,5,6,8 & 9 if repetitions are not
allowed?
17. How many 3-digit numbers are there which are even & have no repeated digits
18. How many 4 digit numbers can be formed using the digits 2,3 ,5,6,8,& 9
(i)
If repetitions are allowed
(ii)
if no repetitions are allowed
(iii) if no repetitions are allowed & are even numbers
(iv)
if no repetitions are allowed & are greater than 4000
(v)
if no repetitions are allowed & divisible by 5
19. How many integers between 1 and 104 contain exactly one 8 and one 9
20. How many integers between 105 & 106
(i)
have no digits other than 2,5,or 8
(ii)
have no digits other than 0,2,5,or 8
21. How many even integers between 4000 and 7000 have four different digits?
22. How many integers less than 10000 can be made with the eight digits 0, 1,
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7?
23. How many 4 letter password can be made with letters (A Z)
a. With no repetition
b. With unlimited repetition.
c. Which starts with a and ends with z.
d. Which starts with a & ends with z and there should be no repetition.
24. How many 9 letter palindromes are there using English alphabet?
25. How many k letter palindromes are possible using English alphabets?
26. How many k letter palindromes are possible using n-letter alphabets?
27. How many 5 digit palindromes are there?
28. How many ways 10 people can be seated in a row so that two of them are not next to
each other?
29. Number of non-negative integers less than 109 that contain the digit 1?
30. A card is drawn from a deck of cards & replaced it before next draw. How many
ways 10 cards can be drawn so that 10th card is a repetition of previous draw?
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31. 101 players entered in Knock out tournament .How many matches must be played in
total?
32. Number of subset of a set with n elements?
33. Each computer system has a password which is 6 to 8 characters long, where each
character is an upper case letter or a digit. Each password must contain at least one
digit. How many possible passwords are there?
34. How many positive divisors do 300 have? What is sum of these divisors?
35. How many factors of 295 are larger than 1,000,000?
36. How many positive divisors does 360 have? How many are even? How many are
odd? How many are perfect squares?
37. number of positive integers ,=100 which are divisible by (a) 2 (b) 3 (c)4
38. The exponent of 11 in prime factorization of 300!
39. The exponent of 3 in prime factorization of 300!
40. How many 5 letter words can be out of 26 letters, repetitions allowed, but not
consecutive repetitions?
41. A flag has to be designed with 6 vertical strips in yellow, green, blue & red. In how
many ways can this be done so that no two adjacent strips have the same color?
42. 5 men A, B, C, D, and E intend to speak at a meeting. In how many orders can they
do
(i)
Without B speaking before A.
(ii)
In B speak immediately after A
43. Number of substrings of different lengths formed from a character string of length n.
44. The number of diagonals that can be drawn by joining the vertices of an octagon is:
(a) 28

(b) 48

(c) 20

(d) 24

Solutions
1. 23+15+19=57
5. 72

6. 72

2. (i) 3+5=8, (ii) 18

3. (i) 2+3=5, (ii) 12

4. 30x29

7. 6n

8. (i) 13 + 13 , (ii) 13+4l, (iii) 4+4 , (iv) 9.4=36, (v) 36+4=40

9. (i) 263 x104, (ii) 263 x10x9x8x7, (iii) if 26x25x24 x104, (iv) 26x25x24 x10x9x8x7

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10. (26+262+263)(10+102 +103 +104)

14. (i)73 (ii) 7x6x5

11. 2n

12. 2n

13. 9 x 10n-1

15. 72+ 73

16. 7!+7x6x5x4x3x2+7x6x5x4x3+7X6X5X4+7X6X5+7X6+7

17. 9X8+8X8X4

18. (i) 64, (ii) 6X5X4X3, (iii) 5X4X3X3, (iv) 4X4X3X1+3X4X3X2, (v) 5X4X3X1
20. (i) 36, (ii) 3X45

19. 4X3X8X8
23. (a) 264 (b) 262

21. 728

22. 4095

(c) 24*23

k
2

24. 26

25. 26

28. 10!-2x9!

29. 10999

26. n 2

27. 900

30. total 10 th card is not a repetition of previous draw = 5210519x52?

31. 100

33. (366266)+ (367267)+ (368268)?

32. 2n

34. (i)18, (ii) (20+21+22 )(30+31)(50+51+52)

35. 76 factors

36. (1+3)(1+2)(1+1) = 24; 18; 6; 4

37. (a)50, (b) 33, (c) 25
39.

300 300 300 300

+ 2 + 3 + 4
3
3
3
3

42. (i) 4!+3x3!+2x3!+3!, (ii) 4!

38.

300 300
+
= 27 + 2 = 29
11 112

40. 26x254

41. 4x35

43. n(n+1)/2

44. C

Pigeonhole principle
1. In a class of 13 students at least how many were born in same month?
2. In a group of 25 people at least how members were born on same day of a week.
3. Among a group 367 people at least how many are with same birth day?
4. What is the minimum number of students in a class to be sure that two of them are
born in same month?
(a) 24
(b) 25
(c)36
(d)37
5. Which of the following is minimum number of students in a class assuring that three
of them are born in same month?
(a) 24
(b) 29
(c)36
(d) 37

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6. How many integers from 1 through 100 must you pick in order to be sure of getting
one that is divisible by 5?
7. How many integers must be selected from the set {1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15} to
guarantee that at least one pair of these numbers add up to 16.
8. 401 letters are distributed to 50 apartments then some apartments receive at lest
_______ letters and
9. Find the minimum number of students needed to guarantee that atleast 4 of them
were born:
(a) on the same day of the week;
(b) in the same month
Solutions
1. 2

2. 4

3. 2

7. 5

8. 9

9. (a) 22 (b) 37

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4. A

5. B

6. 81