Question Detail

STA 112 PERMUTATIONS AND COMBINATIONS Objective Question

Question

In an examination, there are three multiple choice questions and each question has 4 choices. Find the number of ways in which a student can fail to get all answers correct.
Options
A 12
B 16
C 63
Correct Answer
D 64
Correct Answer

Option C is the correct answer.

Detailed Explanation

For each of the three questions, there are 4 choices. Since the choices for each question are independent, the total number of ways to answer all three questions is 4 * 4 * 4 = 4³ = 64. There is only 1 way to get all the answers correct. The number of ways in which a student can fail to get all answers correct is the total number of ways minus the number of ways to get all answers correct: 64 - 1 = 63 ways.

Hint

Calculate the total number of ways to answer all questions, then subtract the single way to get all answers correct.

Question Info