Understanding the Multiplication Principle
Amanda went shopping and bought three blouses (red, yellow, violet) and 2 skirts (blue, Â green) as treat for herself for her birthday. The first thing she did when she got home was tried on the skirts and blouses. Question: In how many ways can she wear them?
This problem can be easily answered by pairing each blouse to the two skirts. The red blouse can be paired with the blue or the green skirt. This is also similar to the yellow and violet blouses.
The pairing above can also be represented using a tree diagram as shown below. For each blouse, we can pair 2 skirts. Since there are three blouses, there are 3(2) = 6 possible ways to wear them. » Read more