Not to sound like I'm covering my arse but I reverse enginered this question and was worried by the answer.Originally posted by spice girl
I'm sorry to say that not only is 8C3 NOT obvious, it's also wrong.
For argument's sake, lets rename the 1st E "E1", and the 2nd E as "E2"
Then there would be 8C3 different ways of choosing 3 letters from the now-distinct 8.
However, now remember that in the real question, both E's are the same. So in all the cases where we only chose one "E" we've double-counted ($)(%)(E1) and ($)(%)(E2) have been considered different sets whereas in fact they are the same (since E1=E2)
NB: $, % are arbitrary letters.
So when there aren't 8 distinct letters (such as FREQUENT), there are less than 8C3 ways of choosing three.
There's a similar flaw in method 2 (we've all double-counted every word with only 1 'E')
To backtrack, we need to subtract every selection that has one 'E', i.e. 1 * 3 * 6 * 5 (one way to choose one 'E', 3 different places to put this 'E', 6 different letters to place the 1st non-'E', 5 different letters to place the 2nd non-'E')
318 - 90 = 228 which is my preferred answer.
Dumbarse: sorry, i dun usually show off - i'm just not used to ppl not believing me...
METHOD III [Correct?]:
PICK 1: 8 letters (2 are the same)
PICK 2: If e is picked, 6 letters left
If e isn't picked, 6 letters left (2 are same)
PICK 3: 6 letters
8*6*6 = 288
does this work?