Answer:
a) 244,140,625 different ways
b) 390,625 different ways
Explanation:
a) If there are 5 ways to place a chip on each location, and there are 12 locations overall, we have:
5^12 ways of placing them
This would mean a total of 244,140,625 different ways
b) If five chips are of the same type, we can first find how many ways we can place chips on the remaining 7 locations:
5^7 = 78,125
Next we can multiply this by the number of ways the next 5 chips could be the same:
78,125 * 5 = 390,625 different ways