Learning Resources

Outcomes

In this lesson you will

• Apply your knowledge of permutations and combinations to solving probability problems.

By the end of this section you should be able to:

• Determine probabilities using permutations and combinations.
• Develop and apply formulae to evaluate permutations and combinations.

Introduction

In this section you will discover that some probabilities are easily counted using permutations and combinations.  The section emphasizes that combinations and permutations are just specialized techniques for counting. This counting is important because the calculation of probabilities involves determining the quotient of two counted values: the number of favorable outcomes and the number of total outcomes.

This section should take you between 1 and 1.5 hours to complete.

Prerequisites

To be successful in this lesson, it would be helpful to know the following:

• The concept of permutations and how to calculate them.
• The concept of combinations and how to calculate them.