An Italian restaurant serves pasta dishes with the following options:

Pasta - angel hair, manicotti, or linguine
Sauce - tomato, alfredo, garlic, or meat
Cheese - parmesan or cheddar

How many different pasta dishes are possible, assuming one item is chosen from each category?
I'm so stuck on this question and I don't have any idea on how to solve it...any help?

6 answers

Take the options and write them all down: ie. angel hair, tomato,parmesan;
angel hair alfredo, parmesan, angelhair, garlic, parmesan, angel hair meat, parmesan....etc.

Then count them. This is the hard way.
you can pick the pasta in 3 ways,
for each of those you can pick the sauce in 4 ways,
and for each of those 12 ways so far, you can pick the cheese in 2 ways.

so there are 24 different pasta dishes possible,
note that 24 = 3x4x2
...Looks and seems hard...but I'll try. Thanks!
-MC
Reiny, I just saw your answer...Thanks!
-MC
The answer choices are:
a.24
b.9
c.32
d.18
-MC
I think it might be A