Question

A pizza parlor has 8 different toppings and 3 different cheeses to choose from on the menu. How many pizza combination are possible if each pizza has 1 topping and 1 cheese?

Answer 1

8 X 3

Answer 2

Think about it this way:

Lets say the cheese options are cheeses 1 2 and 3. If you know you want to get cheese 1, how many options are there? It is clear there are 8, one for each of the topping choices. The same thing can be said if you decide on cheese 2, or cheese 3. So since you don't know what cheese you want yet, there are 3 cheese option, each of which comes with 8 more options. This is 8 + 8 + 8 = 8x3