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There were 20 students running in a race. How many different arrangements of first, second, and third place are possible?
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There were 2020 students running in a race. How many different arrangements of first, second, and third place are possible?\newlineAnswer:

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Q. There were 2020 students running in a race. How many different arrangements of first, second, and third place are possible?\newlineAnswer:
  1. Calculate Permutations Formula: To determine the number of different arrangements for the first three places, we need to calculate the number of permutations of 2020 students taken 33 at a time. The formula for permutations is P(n,k)=n!(nk)!P(n, k) = \frac{n!}{(n - k)!}, where nn is the total number of items and kk is the number of items to arrange.
  2. Calculate Factorial of 2020: First, we calculate the factorial of 2020, which is 20!=20×19×18××120! = 20 \times 19 \times 18 \times \ldots \times 1.
  3. Calculate Factorial of 1717: Next, we calculate the factorial of the difference between the total number of students and the number of places, which is (203)!=17!=17×16×15××1(20 - 3)! = 17! = 17 \times 16 \times 15 \times \ldots \times 1.
  4. Use Permutation Formula: Now, we use the permutation formula P(20,3)=20!(203)!=20!17!P(20, 3) = \frac{20!}{(20 - 3)!} = \frac{20!}{17!}.
  5. Simplify Expression: We simplify the expression by canceling out the common factorial terms: P(20,3)=20×19×181=20×19×18P(20, 3) = \frac{20 \times 19 \times 18}{1} = 20 \times 19 \times 18.
  6. Perform Multiplication: We perform the multiplication: 20×19×18=684020 \times 19 \times 18 = 6840.
  7. Final Result: Therefore, there are 68406840 different arrangements of first, second, and third place possible among 2020 students running in a race.

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