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Mathematics
Quarter 3 – Module 3
Combinations
About the Module
This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you
master the skills in illustrating the combinations of objects. The scope of this module
permits it to be used in many different learning situations. The language used recognizes
the diverse vocabulary level of you, learners. The lessons are arranged to follow the
standard sequence of the course. But the order in which you read them can be changed
to correspond with the textbook you are now using.

This module is divided into three lessons, namely:

Lesson 1 – Introduction to Combinations
Lesson 2 – Combination Formula
Lesson 3 – Word Problems Involving Combinations
After going through this module, you are expected to:
1. define and illustrate combinations,
2. derive the formula for finding the number of combinations of n objects
taken r at a time, and
3. solve problems involving combinations.

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 What I Know (Pre-Test)
Instructions
Read each item carefully. Choose only the letter of the correct answer
and write it on a separate sheet.
1. Which of the following conditions illustrates combination?
A. arranging books in a shelf
B. selecting 2 songs from 10 choices for an audition piece
C. forming different numbers from 5 given digits
D. forming plate numbers of vehicles
2. _____________ is an arrangement of objects in which the order is not
important.
A. Counting principle C. Probability
B. Permutation D. Combination
3. Which of the following statement is true?
II. 4! + 3! = 7!
III. 30 – (4!) = 3!
A. I B. II C. III D. I, II & III
4. C (n, n) = ______.
A. n B. r C. 1 D. cannot be
5. If C (12, r) = 495, which of the following is a possible value of r?
A. 8 B. 7 C. 6 D. 4
determined
6. If C (n, r) = 35, which of the following are possible values of n and r?
A. n =6, r = 4 B. n =7, r = 3 C. n =8, r = 3 D. n =9, r = 2
7. Evaluate: C (7,4)
A. 5 B. 15 C. 25 D. 35
8. If C (n, 4) = 15, what is n?
A. 5 B. 6 C. 7 D. 8
9. Calculate: 5 C 2
A. 5 B. 10 C. 15 D. 20
10. The first ten letters of the English alphabet are to be used by a certain
company as employee codes in sets of five. Find the number of
combinations.
A. 25 B. 225 C. 252 D. 552
11. Which of the following is the formula for combination?
𝑛! 𝑛!
A. n C r = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
B. r C n = (𝑛−𝑟)!
𝑟!
𝑛! 𝑛!
C. n C r = (𝑛−𝑟)!
D. n C r =
𝑟!

12. Which of the following does NOT involve combination?

A. selecting fruits to make a salad
B. assigning telephone numbers to homes
C. choosing household chores to do after classes
D. selecting posters to hang in the walls of your room
13. Five friends want to play enough games of chess to be sure everyone plays
everyone else. How many games will they have to play?
A. 10 games B. 11 games C. 12 games D. 13 games
14. How many ways can 5 cards be dealt from a deck of 52 cards?
A. 2, 598, 960 B. 2, 598, 906 C. 2,960, 598 D. 2, 589, 960
15. How many committees of 3 can be formed from a group of 4 students?
A. 1 B. 3 C. 4 D. 6
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Lesson
1 Introduction to
Monday
Combinations

What I Need to Know

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:
 define and illustrate combinations

What’s In
In the previous lessons, you were able to learn how to solve problems
involving Fundamental Counting Principle and Permutation.
Here are some word problems for review. Solve the following:
1. If each automated Teller Machine card of a certain bank has to have 4
different digits in its passcode, how many different possible passcodes can
there be?
2. If ice cream is served in a cone, in how many ways can Romar choose his
three-flavor ice cream scoop if there are 7 available flavors?
3. How many possible permutations are there in the letters of the word
MATHEMATICS?

What’s New
To fully understand combination in Mathematics, study the tasks or
activities below and then answer the questions that follow.
1. Choosing 3 fruits in the fruit stand out of 10 different fruits.
2. Opening an email password.
3. Winning in a contest.
4. Forming plates numbers of vehicles.
5. Entering the PIN (Personal Identification Card) of your ATM.
6. Selecting 5 questions to answer out of 10 questions.
7. Choosing household chores to do after answering the module.
8. Drawing a set of 6 numbers in a lottery containing numbers 1 to 45.

Guide Questions:
1. In which tasks/ activities above are order or arrangement important?
2. In which tasks/ activities above are order or arrangement not important?
3. Which situation/s above illustrate combination? Why?

What Is It
There are instances when you are interested in the different
arrangements of a certain number of objects from a given sets.
Combination is a mathematical technique that determines the number
of possible arrangements in a collection of items where the order of the
selection is not important. In combination, you can select the items in any
order. 2
 Combinations can be confused with permutations. However, in permutations
the order of the selected items is important. For example, suppose you are arranging
the numbers 1, 2 and 3. In permutation, the arrangement 123 and 321 are different
in value. But, in a combination, the arrangements 123 and 321 are the same
because the order does not matter.
Based on the given tasks/activities above, items 1, 6, 7, and 8 are
situations involving combination, while items 2, 3, 4 and 5 are situations
involving permutation.

Here are some examples of combinations.

1. Given the set of students (Lita, Nancy, Cecile and Sol), how many committees
consisting of two students in each can be formed?
Possibilities
Nancy (Lita, Nancy)
Lita Sol (Lita, Sol)
Cecile (Lita, Cecile)

Lita (Nancy, Lita)

Nancy Cecile (Nancy, Cecile)
Sol (Nancy, Sol)
Start
Lita (Cecile, Lita)
Cecile Nancy (Cecile, Nancy)
Sol (Cecile, Sol)

Lita (Sol, Lita)

Sol Nancy (Sol, Nancy)
Cecile (Sol, Cecile)
In this situation the order is not important, the only concern is the
composition of each pair. For example, the pair (Lita, Nancy) and (Nancy, Lita)
have the same composition. Hence, it does not make sense to enumerate all the
possibilities. Therefore, there are only 6 committees consisting of two students.

2. How many different triangles out of points plotted, say A, B, C, and D, of

which no three are collinear?
A C

D
B
Possibilities
ABC ABD BCD CDA
ACB ADB BDC CAD
BCA BDA CDB DAC
BAC BAD CBD DCA
CAB DBA DBC ADC
CBA DAB DCB ACD
You can see that ABC is the same as BCA and CAB. In the same
manner, BCD is the same as CBD and DBC.
There are 24 possibilities, since you learned in Geometry that you can
name a triangle using three vertices in any order, then if you look more closely,
you can see that all the triangles in the same column are identical. Thus, the
actual number of combinations is 4 triangles.

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 What’s More
Activity 1: Am I Combination?
Determine which of the following situation/s illustrates combination.
1. Picking of 3 people from group of 10.
2. Assigning rooms for conference participants.
3. Choosing 2 fantasy books to buy from a variety of choices.
4. Selecting picture frame to hang on the wall.
5. Assigning telephone number to homes.
6. Assembling a jigsaw puzzle.
7. Determining the top 5 winners in a beauty pageant.
8. Picking 4 marbles from a basket of 10 balls.
9. Forming a committee of 3 members from 15 people.
10. Forming lines from 5 given points with no three of which are collinear.

What I Need To Remember

Ordering is the difference between permutation and combination. With
permutation arrangement or order is important, while in combination order is
not important.

Lesson
2 Combination Formula
Tuesday

What I Need to Know

At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:
 derive the formula for finding the number of combinations of n
objects taken r at a time

What’s In
Using the concept of combination, use the tree diagram to answer this
situation:

In a raffle draw, Niño won a trip to any two of these

cities: Cebu, Baguio, Vigan, and Davao. How many choices
does he have?

What’s New
Look at this given expression.

7 C5
How will you evaluate this given?
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 What Is It
An arrangement of objects in which order is not important is
combination.
The number of combinations of r objects taken from n objects is
denoted by,
𝒏!
C (n, r) = , where n ≥ r ≥ 0
(𝒏−𝒓)! 𝒓!

Number of items selected from the set

Number of items in a set

There are other notations for combinations. Some of these are the
following: 𝑪 r𝒏 , and 𝑪 ( 𝒏 ) for n C r.
r
Let us study the following examples by applying the formula.

Example 1
Evaluate the following expressions:
a. 8C5
b. C (6,3)
c. 9C7
6C4
Solution:
𝑛!
a. C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
8!
8C5 = C (8,5) =
(8−5)! 5!
8!
=(
3)! 5!
8 𝑥 7 𝑥 6 𝑥 5!
=
(3)! 5!
8𝑥7𝑥 6
= 3𝑥2𝑥1

8 𝑥7𝑥 6
= 6
= 56

𝑛!
b. C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
6!
C (6,3) =
(6−3)! 3!
6!
=(
3)! 3!
6 𝑥 5 𝑥 4 𝑥 3!
=
(3)! 3!
6𝑥5𝑥 4
= 3𝑥2𝑥1

120
= 6
= 20
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 𝑛!
c. C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
9!
(9−7)! 7!
=
6!
(6−4)! 4!
9!
(2)! 7!
=
6!
(2)! 4!
9 𝑥 8 𝑥 7!
(2)! 7!
=
6 𝑥 5 𝑥 4!
(2)! 4!
9 𝑥8 6𝑥5
=
(2)!
÷ (2)!

9 𝑥 8 (2)!
= x
(2)! 6x5
72
=
30
12
=
5

Example 2
In how many ways can a coach choose 5 players from among 10 players?
Solution: (Using the formula)
n = 10, r = 5

𝑛!
C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
10!
C (10,5) =
(10−5)! 5!
10!
= (5)!
5!
10 𝑥 9 𝑥 8 𝑥 7 𝑥 6 𝑥 5!
= (5)! 5!
10 𝑥 9 𝑥 8 𝑥 7 𝑥 6
=
5𝑥4𝑥3𝑥2𝑥1
30,240
= 120
= 252 ways

What’s More
Activity 2: Riddle

WHAT IS THE EARLIEST FORM OF SHOES?

Direction:
Evaluate the following expressions. Write the letter of the correct answer
in each box that contains the exercise number.
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 1. C (4,2) N. 21
2. C (9,7) S. 10
3. 5C3 L. 20
4. 6C3 A. 6
5. 9C4 T. 45
6C5 D. 36

3 1 5 2 1 4

What I Need To Remember

Combination formula
The combination of n objects taken r at a time:
𝑛!
C(n,r) = ( 𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
,n≥r≥0

Lesson
3 Word Problems Involving
Wednesday
Combinations
What I Need to Know
At the end of this lesson, you are expected to:
 solve problems involving combinations

What’s In
What is the value of n of this given expression C (n, 5) = 56?

o 8
o 10
o 12
o 14 Clip art credit from
webstockreview.net

What’s New
Using the combination formula, how many
different sets of 4 cards each can be formed
from a standard deck of 52 cards?

Photo credit from

dreamstime.com

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 What Is It
You need to remember that combination is a grouping or subset of
items. For combination, the order does not matter. Generally, this formula is
𝑛!
used for combinations which is C (n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
.
In solving problems involving permutations and combinations, you need
to evaluate first the situation if order is important or not.
Here are some real-life problems involving combinations.

Examples:
1. If there are 10 teams in volleyball tournament and each team must
play every other team in the eliminations, how many elimination games
will there be?

Solution: n = 10, r = 2
𝑛!
C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)!
𝑟!
10!
C (10,2) =
(10−2)! 2!
10!
=(
8)! 2!
10 𝑥 9 𝑥 8!
=
(8)! 2!
10 𝑥 9
= 2𝑥1
90
= 2
= 45 elimination games

2. From 5 Geometry books and 6 Algebra books, in how many ways can
one select 2 Geometry and 2 Algebra books to buy if all the said books
are equally important?

Solution:
C (5,2) • C (6,2) = 10 • 15 = 150 ways

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3. If there are 5 distinct points on a plane with no three of which are
collinear, how many different polygons can be possibly made?

Solution: C (5,3) + C (5,4) + C (5,5)

= 10 + 5 + 1
= 16 Polygons

4. In a gathering, the host makes sure that each guest shakes hands with
everyone else. If there are 25 guests, how many handshakes will be done?
Solution: n = 25, r = 2
𝑛!
C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)!
𝑟!
25!
C (25,2) =
(25−2)! 2!
25!
=(
23)! 2!
25 𝑥 24 𝑥 23!
=
(23)! 2!
25 𝑥 24
= 2𝑥1
600
= 2
= 300 handshakes

5. On a circle there are 12 points selected. How many triangles with edges in
these points?
Solution: n = 12, r = 3
𝑛!
C(n,r) = (𝑛−𝑟)!
𝑟!
12!
C (12,3) =
(12−3)! 3!
12!
=(
9)! 2!
12 𝑥 11 𝑥 10 𝑥 9!
=
(9)! 3!
12 𝑥 11 𝑥 10
= 3 𝑥2𝑥1
1,320
= 6
= 220 triangles
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 What’s More
Activity 3: Word Problem
1. In a 10-item Mathematics problem solving test, how many ways can
you select 5 problems to solve?

2. In a singing contest, each participant must perform 3 kinds of songs.

If there and 8 choices for pop music, 4 choices for jazz music, and 5
choices for rock music, in how many possible ways can a participant
select their piece?

What I Need To Remember

The Fundamental Counting Principle as well as permutation are
essential concepts in understanding combinations.
Permutation refers to the different arrangements of a set objects. The
number of permutations of n objects taken rate at a time is:
𝑛!
P (n,r) = ( 𝑛−𝑟)!
,n≥r≥0

Combinations is the number of ways of selecting from a set when the

order is not important. The number of combinations of n objects taken rate
𝑛!
at a time is given by C (n,r) = ( 𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
, n ≥ r ≥ 0.

Thursday
Combination
What I Can Do
Activity 4: Make me Complete
Find the unknown in each item.
1. C (11, 5) = __________
2. C (7, 7) = __________
3. C (n, 3) = 35
4. C (10, r) = 120
5. C (n, 2) = 78

Activity 5: What am I?
Read each situation. Write C if the situation is combination and P if it is
permutation.
______6. Opening a combination lock.
______7. Choosing 3 questions to answer out of 5 questions in a test.
______8. Matching shirts and pants.
______9. Identifying the lines formed by connecting some given points on a
plane.
______10. Assigning codes to students.

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 Activity 6: Solve Me

11. How many sets of 4 Mathematics books can be read from a set of 8
Mathematics books?

12. A locally known caterer offers 3 kinds of soup, 8 kinds of main dish, 5 kinds
of vegetable dish, and 4 kinds of dessert. In how many possible ways can a
caterer form a meal consisting of 1 soup, 3 main dishes, 2 vegetable dish and 2
desserts?

Friday
Combinations

Assessment (Post Test)

Instructions
Read each item carefully. Choose the letter of the correct answer and
write it on a separate sheet.
1. Which of the following conditions illustrates combination?
A. assigning codes to students
B. selecting 3 questions to answer from 5 choices of easy questions
C. forming different numbers from 5 given digits
D. forming plate numbers of vehicles
2. Choosing a subset of a set is an example of ________________.
A. counting principle C. probability
B. permutation D. combination
3. C (n, n) = ______.
A. n B. r C. 1 D. cannot be
determined
4. Which of the following statement is true?
I. 10! (5!) = 15!
II. 4! + 2! = 26
III. 20 – (4!) = 16!
A. I B. II C. III D. I, II & III
5. If C (12, r) = 220, which of the following is a possible value of r?
A. 9 B. 7 C. 6 D. 4
6. If C (n, r) = 15, which of the following are possible values of n and r?
A. n =6, r = 4 B. n =7, r = 3 C. n =8, r = 3 D. n =9, r = 2
7. Evaluate; C (10,7)
A. 50 B. 120 C. 250 D. 350
8. If C (n, 4) = 35, what is n?
A. 5 B. 6 C. 7 D. 8
9. Calculate: 6 C 3
A. 5 B. 10 C. 15 D. 20
10. If there are 7 distinct points on a plane with no three of which are collinear,
how many different polygons can be possibly formed?
A. 69 B. 79 C. 89 D. 99

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11. In how many ways can a coach choose two swimmers from among four
swimmers?
A. 2 B. 4 C. 6 D. 10
12. Which of the following is the formula for combination?
𝑛! 𝑛!
A. n C r = (𝑛−𝑟)! 𝑟!
B. r C n = (𝑛−𝑟)!
𝑟!
𝑛! 𝑛!
C. n C r = (𝑛−𝑟)!
D. n C r =
𝑟!
13. A teacher has prepared 10 Algebraic task and 8 Geometric tasks. For a test
he’d like to use 5 Algebraic and 4 Geometric tasks. How many ways are
there to make the test?
A. 70 B. 252 C. 322 D. 17,640
14. A committee of 4 people is to be chosen from 6 women and 7 men. Find the
number of different committees that can be chosen if there are no restrictions.
A. 176 B. 157 C. 517 D. 715
15. Which of the following does NOT involve combination?
A. picking balls at the same time from a box full of balls
B. assigning code to every quarantine pass
C. choosing cities to visit during a long vacation
D. selecting flowers to be placed in a vase

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 Answer Key
Remember: This portion of the module contains all the answers. Your
HONESTY is required
Lesson 1 Combinations are items 1,3,4, 8, 9 and 10.
What’s More Activity 1: Am I combination

Lesson 2
What’s More 1 2 5 1 3
4

L A D N A S

Activity 2: Riddle

Lesson 3 2. C (4, 1) • C (8,1) • C (5,1) = 160

What’s More 1. C (10, 5) = 252
Activity 3: Word Problem

References
Books
Callanta, Melvin M., Allan M. Canonigo, Arnaldo I. Chua, Jerry D. Cruz, Mirla
S. Esparrago, Elino S. Garcia, Aries N. Magnaye, Fernando B. Orines,
Rowena S. Perez, and Concepcion S. Ternida. 2015. Mathematics –
Grade 10 Learners' Module. Pasig: REX Book Store.
Pascua, Leonarda B., Capalad, Lanniene, Florenda Gallos, Demeterio Mier,
Elvira Nguyen, Soledad Ulep and Fe N. Reyes. 1997. Mathematics IV
for Fourth Year High School. Instructional Materials Development
Center (IMDC).
Hestenes, Marshall D. and Richard O. Hill, Jr. © 1982
College Algebra with Calculators. Published by Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Reprinted and distributed by UNI-ED, Incorporated.
Images
GEOGEBRA Apps
MS Word Tools

Congratulations!
You are now ready for the next module. Always remember the
following:
1. Make sure every answer sheet has your
 Name
 Grade and Section
 Title of the Activity or Activity No.
2. Follow the date of submission of answer sheets as agreed
with your teacher.
3. Keep the modules with you AND return them at the end of
the school year or whenever face-to-face interaction is
permitted.
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