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counting and probability intermediate
Problem
Our water polo team has 15 members. I want to choose a starting team consisting of 7 players, one of whom will be the goalie (the other six positions are interchangeable, so the order in which they are chosen doesn't matter). In how many ways can I choose my starting team?
Solution
First we choose the goalie, and any of the 15 people can be the goalie. Then we choose 6 more players from the remaining 14 players, which is same as choosing a committee. There are 14 ways to choose the first player, 13 ways to choose the second player, and so on, down to 9 ways to choose the sixth player. We must then divide by since order of the six players doesn't matter. So the answer is .
Final answer
45,\!045