Question

You have 5 pairs of pants, 8 shirts, and 3 ties - how many different outfits can you make?

Answer 1

First they have to decide on a pair of pants and they have 8 different choices. For each of those choices they have a choice of 5 different shirts, so that gives them 8 times 5 = 40 different pant/shirt combinations. For each those 40 possibilities, they have 3 different ties they could select, so altogether they have 40 times 3 = 120 different outfits.