Scribd
Upload
82 views4 pages

MA1302 Unit-II Practice Questions

The document provides 16 practice questions related to combinatorics and probability. The questions cover topics like counting the number of possible lists, strings, and subsets given certain constraints. Solutions are provided for some of the questions involving counting the number of possible arrangements or selections of different objects.

Uploaded by

Vishnu Nayak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
82 views4 pages

MA1302 Unit-II Practice Questions

The document provides 16 practice questions related to combinatorics and probability. The questions cover topics like counting the number of possible lists, strings, and subsets given certain constraints. Solutions are provided for some of the questions involving counting the number of possible arrangements or selections of different objects.

Uploaded by

Vishnu Nayak
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

MA1302 Engineering Mathematics-III (common for CSE and IT)

Unit-II – Practice questions


1. suppose we need to make a list of length three having the property that the
first entry must be an element of the set { a,b, c } , the second entry must be
in { 5,7 } and the third entry must be in {a, x} . How many such lists are there
all together?
12

2. Consider making lists from symbols A, B, C, D, E, F, G. (a) How many length-


4 lists are possible if repetition is allowed? (b) How many length-4 lists are
possible if repetition is not allowed? (c) How many length-4 lists are possible if
repetition is not allowed and the list must contain an E? (d) How many length-
4 lists are possible if repetition is allowed and the list must contain an E?

Solutions: (a) Imagine the list as containing four boxes that we fill with
selections from the letters A,B,C,D,E,F and G, as illustrated below.

There are seven possibilities for the contents of each box, so the total
number of lists that can be made this way is 7·7·7·7 = 2401.
(b) This problem is the same as the previous one except that repetition is
not allowed. We have seven choices for the first box, but once it is filled
we can no longer use the symbol that was placed in it. Hence there are
only six possibilities for the second box. Once the second box has been
filled we have used up two of our letters, and there are only five left to
choose from in filling the third box. Finally, when the third box is filled
we have only four possible letters for the last box.

Thus the answer to our question is that there are 7·6·5·4 = 840 lists in
which repetition does not occur.
(c) We are asked to count the length-4 lists in which repetition is not
allowed and the symbol E must appear somewhere in the list. Thus E
occurs once and only once in each such list. Let us divide these lists
into four categories depending on whether the E occurs as the first,
second, third or fourth entry. These four types of lists are illustrated
below.
Consider lists of the first type, in which the E appears in the first entry.
We have six remaining choices (A,B,C,D,F or G) for the second entry,
five choices for the third entry and four choices for the fourth entry.
Hence there are 6·5·4 = 120 lists having an E in the first entry. As
indicated in the above diagram, there are also 6·5·4 = 120 lists having an
E in the second, third or fourth entry. Thus there are 120+120+120+120 =
480 such lists all together.
(d) Now we must find the number of length-four lists where repetition is
allowed and the list must contain an E. Our strategy is as follows. By
Part (a) of this exercise there are 7 · 7 · 7 · 7 = 7 4 = 2401 lists where
repetition is allowed. Obviously this is not the answer to our current
question, for many of these lists contain no E. We will subtract from
2401 the number of lists that do not contain an E. In making a list that
does not contain an E, we have six choices for each list entry (because
we can choose any one of the six letters A,B,C,D,F or G). Thus there are
6·6·6·6 = 6 4 = 1296 lists that do not have an E. Therefore the final
answer to our question is that there are 2401 − 1296 = 1105 lists with
repetition allowed that contain at least one E.

3. This problem involves 8-digit binary strings such as 10011011 or 00001010


(i.e., 8-digit numbers composed of 0’s and 1’s). (a) How many such strings
are there? (b) How many such strings end in 0? (c) How many such strings
have the property that their second and fourth digits are 1’s? (d) How many
such strings have the property that their second or fourth digits are 1’s?
(a) 28 (b) 2 7 (c) 2 6 (d) 27  27  26

4. This problem concerns lists of length 6 made from the letters


A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H. How many such lists are possible if repetition is not allowed
and the list contains two consecutive vowels?
Answer: There are just two vowels A and E to choose from. The lists we
want to make can be divided into five types. They have one of the forms
V V ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗, or ∗V V ∗ ∗∗, or ∗ ∗ V V ∗ ∗, or ∗ ∗ ∗V V∗, or ∗ ∗ ∗ ∗ V V, where V
indicates a vowel and ∗ indicates a consonant. By the multiplication
principle, there are 2·1·6·5·4·3 = 720 lists of form V V ∗∗∗∗. In fact, that for
the same reason there are 720 lists of each form. Thus the answer to the
question is 5·720 = 3600
5. Compute how many 9-digit numbers can be made from the digits
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 if repetition is not allowed and all the odd digits occur first (on
the left) followed by all the even digits (i.e. as in 137598264, but not
123456789).
6. How many subsets of size six does a set with 15 elements have? C(15,
6)

7. How many strings of length six can be formed from a 15 letter alphabet?
a. with repetition allowed? 156
b. with all letters distinct? P(15, 6)

8. A sailing club has 10 white flags, 7 red flags, and 3 green flags. If all
flags are displayed on a flag pole, how many different arrangements are
possible? 20!/(10!•7!•3!)

9. How many five card poker hands have exactly 2 pairs? C(13, 2)C(4,
2)C(4, 2)44

10. Let S = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10}. In how many 5-element subsets of S is 3 the


smallest element? C(7, 4) There are seven elements greater than three
of which four must be chosen to obtain a subset of size five that
includes 3.

11. A five-card hand is selected from a deck of 52 cards. How many hands
contain no aces or kings? C(44, 5); exactly 2 queens? C(4, 2)•C(48, 3);
exactly 2 queens and exactly 3 spades?

C(3, 2)•C(12, 3) + C(3, 1)•C(12, 2)•36 (without and with the Q of spades)

12. A string of length 8 is formed from the alphabet A = {a, b, c, d, e, f}. How
many strings contain exactly one a or exactly two b’s?
(exactly 1 a + exactly 2 b’s – 1a and 2b’s)
8•57 + C(8,2)•56 - 8•C(7, 2)•45

13. A pizza take-out advertises it offers a choice of over 200 different


pizzas. You can choose one or more different toppings. How many
toppings must be available to make this statement true? 8 since 28 =
256
14. How many distinct permutations are there of the letters in
COOPERATE? 9!/ (2!•2!)
15. Find the number of bit strings with five 0's and eight 1's that contain the
substring 0101. 10•C(9, 3) (Arrange 10 things: the 0101 pattern +
three 0's and six 1's)
16. A test has two parts. Part 1 has 6 questions and part 2 has 4. A
student must answer a total of 6 questions with at least two from each
part. In how many ways can the questions that are answered be
selected? C(6, 2)•C(4, 4) + C(6, 3)•C(4, 3) + C(6, 4)•C(4, 2)

You might also like