At a restaurant, dinner guests can choose between two appetizers – soup or salad, three main dishes – chicken, pasta, or salmon, and two desserts – cake or pie. If customers do not want any dessert, they can get a second appetizer instead. (In this case, they can choose to get the same appetizer twice or two different appetizers.) How many different options are there for dinner at this restaurant?

Answer 1

There are:

2 options for appetizers
3 options for main dishes
2 options for desserts

To calculate the total number of options, we multiply the number of options for each course:

2 appetizer options x 3 main dish options x 2 dessert options = 12 different options for dinner

However, since customers can choose to get a second appetizer instead of dessert, we need to consider the additional options for this case. There are:

2 options for appetizers (the same appetizer twice or two different appetizers)

So, we need to add this to the total:

12 options for dinner + 2 options for second appetizer instead of dessert = 14 different options for dinner