Hello, marutpadhy!
How many permutations of 4 letters can be made
out of the letters of the word EXAMINATION?
There are 8 distinct letters: [tex]A,E,I,M,N,O,T,X.[/tex]
Three of them are duplicated: [tex]AA,\,II,\,NN.[/tex]
There are three cases to be considered.
[1] Four distinct letters: PQRS
. . .[tex]_8P_4 = 1680[/tex] pemutations.[2] One pair: PPQR
. . .3 choices for the pair.
. . .Select 2 more letters from the other 7: [tex]_7C_2 = 21[/tex] ways.
. . .Arrange the 4 letters in [tex]{4\choose2,1,1} =6[/tex] ways.
There are: .[tex]3\cdot 21\cdot6 \:=\:378[/tex] permutations.[3] Two pairs: PPQQ
. . .[tex]{3\choose2} = 3[/tex] choices for the two pairs.
. . .They can be arranged in [tex]{4\choose2,2} = 6[/tex] ways.
There are: .[tex]3\cdot6 \,=\,18[/tex] permutations.Total: .[tex]1680 + 378 + 178 \:=\:2076[/tex] permutations.