To arrange 7 items, taking only 3 at a time and assuming that the order of those 3 items do not matter, the procedure is as below:
You first pick 3 items out of 7 original items (combination with n = 7 and k = 3), then you pick 3 items out of 4 remaining items (combination with n = 4 and k = 3), the last item is automatically chosen.