In his closet, John has one red shirt, one blue shirt, one pair of shorts, one pair of jeans, and a pair of slacks. What are the possible shirt-and-pant combinations
For shirts, John has two options. He can either choose to wear the red shirt or the blue one.
For pants, John has a total of three options. One pair of shorts, jeans, and slacks equals three options.
The total number of combinations can be found by multiplying the number of independent options together. In this case, picking a shirt has no impact on which pair of pants John wears, so we can just multiply them together.
\(2*3=6 \text{ shirt-and-pants combinations}\)