how do you figure out possible combinations in math?

Question

for example, you can pick one choice of each group:
meat has 4 choices
vegetables has 3 choices
bread has 3 choices
How do you figure the possible combination if you get one item from each group? What is the formula?

Answer 1

4*3*3 = 36

Answer 2

Just multiply.

Combinations = 4 x 3 x 3 = 36 combinations

Details:
For every choice of meat (4 choices) you have 3 choices of vegetable. So there are 12 combinations of meat and vegetable. And for each combination of meat and vegetable (12) there are 3 choices of bread. So that is 36 combinations of the 3 items. This assumes that you must pick exactly one of each.

Answer 3

I think that it's called the mulfiplication rule.

Choose from meat first: 4 choices, now for EACH of those, there are three choices of vegetables. 4 times 3 is 12...

continue with the rest of the choices to get

m times v times b
4 x 3 x 3 = 36


You're choosing an ordered triple (m,v,b) with 4 possible m values and 3 possible v values, and 3 possible b values.

Answer 4

M = meat; V = veggies; B = bread; C = combinations
So M = 4; V = 3; B = 3
M x V x B = C
4 x 3 x 3 = 36
I think.