Practice30Create account

The six letters of the word COFFEE are rearranged. In how many of the resulting letter-strings do the two F's stand together AND the two E's also stand together?

Competition practiceProbability & Permutation
  • A96
  • B24
  • C180
  • D120

Step-by-Step Solution

Glue the two F's into one block and the two E's into another. The units left to arrange are [FF], [EE], C and O — four distinct units, giving 4! = 24 strings. Nothing further happens inside either block, because the two F's are identical and so are the two E's. Trap shuffles each block internally, which produces nothing new when the letters are alike. Trap 180 = 6!/(2! × 2!) is the unrestricted total for COFFEE. Trap 120 glues only the F's and then treats the two E's as though they were different letters, giving 5! instead of the correct 5!/2! = 60 for that half-done case.
Answer: B) 24

Master this topic in 30 minutes a day.

Don't just memorise the answer — build a daily practice habit.

Practice 5 Similar Questions Free →

All Probability & Permutation practice questions

More Probability & Permutation practice

A three-member panel is picked at random from a group of 4 economists, 3 statisticians…How many three-digit numbers are there in which all three digits are different and the…A student owns 6 different reference books and wants to carry some of them to the…Two events A and B have P(A) = 0.5 and P(B) = 0.3. Let x be the value of P(A or B) when…Four-letter strings are formed using the letters of the word PRIME, no letter being used…