ShmoopTube

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Here's a shmoopy question for you...

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Chuck, a lifetime criminal, is taking his son Kevin to steal his very first car.

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Kevin has the following options to choose from for his virgin theft,

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as displayed in the following diagram.

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Based on the diagram, how many total different variations of

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car are there for Kevin to choose from?

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And here are the potential answers...

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It's really asking whether we can collate a lot of boring data into properly measured buckets.

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Let's just think through this thing.

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There are 5 colors. But each color could be one of 3 power systems -- gas, hybrid or diesel.

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So you know he has at least 5 times 3 total choices of cars...

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...that's 15 configurations before he even considers whether he wants to steal a sedan or a coupe.

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We need to be smart about our time -- we've glanced first at the potential answers,

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and we already know the 3 it CAN'T be -- 6, 10 and 15.

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We have 15 choices WITHOUT the sedan-coupe issue.

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So we know the answer has to be MORE THAN 15.

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Well, there's only one that fits the bill there and that's 30.

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So it has to be the answer... but think about the sedan-coupe issue --

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two choices and thus far we've multiplied our choices each time we've had the option --

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2 times 15 is 30 and yeah. Varoom.

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It's D... 30.

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So many options for a burgeoning burglar...

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