The cast of a play consists of 7 males and 5 females. There is 1 male lead role and 1 female lead role.

A. In how many different ways can the two lead roles be cast?

My answer: 12 ways.. would'nt you add the number of females and males total and because there is 1 lead role for each gender the answer would be 12.

What would the answer be and how did you get to that point?

1 answer

no, any of the 7 men could have the leading role,
for each of those, there would be 5 choices for the female role,
so number of ways = 7x5 = 35