Video Transcript
An ice cream store offers three
different cup sizes and 14 flavors. How many ways are there to buy a
single flavor of ice cream?
Let’s say, for example, you could
buy a small cup, a medium cup, or a large cup. Your first decision or your first
choice is what size cup you would like. If you choose a small cup, there
are 14 different flavors. Remember, we’re wondering how many
ways we can buy a single flavor. And that means our choices for the
small cup are 14 different choices. We’ll have the same choice for the
medium cup and the large cup, 14 flavors in any of the three cups. Another way to say this is that for
each flavor, there are three different ways to buy it: small chocolate, medium
chocolate, large chocolate, small vanilla, medium vanilla, large vanilla.
To find out the number of ways to
buy a single flavor, we multiply our choices. Three sizes by 14 flavors equals 42
total choices.
