Online Course Discussion Forum

Math Challenge I-A + I-B Counting and Probability

 
 
Picture of David Reynoso
Re: Math Challenge I-A + I-B Counting and Probability
by David Reynoso - Wednesday, August 7, 2019, 5:51 PM
 

For the median of the $5$ books to be $7$ we need that $3$, $4$ or $5$ of them choose book $7$ as their favorite.

There are $\displaystyle \binom{5}{3} \times 6^2$ was to have $3$ of them choose book $7$ as their favorite, since we need to choose which $3$ of the $5$ chose it, and we also need to choose some of the other $6$ books for each of the other $2$ people.

Similarly, there are $\displaystyle \binom{5}{4} \times 6$ and $\displaystyle \binom{5}{5} \times 6^0$ ways for $4$ of them or $5$ of them, respectively, to choose book $7$ as their favorite. 

Thus, there are $\displaystyle \binom{5}{3} \times 6^2 + \binom{5}{4} \times 6^1 + \binom{5}{5} \times 6^0$ ways to have the median of the books to be $7$.