Question

The coach of softball team is holding tryouts and can take only 2 more players for the team. There are 8 players trying out . How different groups of 2 players could possibly be chosen?

Answer 1

Answer:

64

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

Answer:

28 groups of 2.

Step-by-step explanation:

That would be the number of possible combinations of 2 out of 8 , written as 8C2.

8C2  = 8! / (8-2)! 2!

A quick way of working this out is  8*7 / 2*1 . The above formula simplifies to this.   Note the numerator starts with 8 then you  multiply by  7 (8-1). The number of values in the numerator depends on the combination value ( in this case it is 2). The denominator here is 2*1.

So the answer is 8*7 / 2*1 = 28 ways.

Other examples of combinations:

7C4  =  7*5*4*3 / 4*3*2*1

10C3 = 10*9*8 / 3*2*1.

I hope this helps.