Question

Students at a private liberal arts college are classified as being freshmen, sophomores, juniors or seniors, and also according to whether they are male or female. Find the total number of possible classifications for the students of this college.

Answer 1

If you only had to classify students by their year of study, how many options would there be?

How does factoring in their sex affect your equation?

Answer 2

4x2=8

Answer 3

4 being the amount of classifications, ie. freshman or junior.
2 being the amount of possible sexes, ie. male or female.
Is that what you mean? Seems too simple.....

Answer 4

i doubt it's that simple...

Answer 5

It might have been different had the question allowed students to be classified by year of study and/or sex, but it's clear that it's both. Eight possible classifications is correct. With only eight options, it's easy to verify by thinking of each one (male freshman, male sophomore, etc.).

Answer 6

A = {Male, Female}
B = {Freshman, Sophmore, Junior, Senior}

A x B = {(Male, Freshman), (Male, Sophomore), (Male, Junior), (Male, Senior), (Female, Freshman), (Female, Sophomore), (Female, Junior), (Female, Senior)}

Answer 7

so it's just multiplication?

Answer 8

Apparently