A bowl of fruit contains 4 apples, 5 oranges, and 3 bananas. In how many ways can 3 oranges be selected?

To calculate the number of ways to select 3 oranges from a bowl of fruit, you can use the combination formula. The combination formula is given by:

C(n, r) = n! / (r! * (n-r)!)

Where n represents the total number of items to choose from, and r represents the number of items to select.

In this case, n is the number of oranges in the bowl, which is 5, and r is the number of oranges we want to select, which is 3.

Plugging in the values into the formula:

C(5, 3) = 5! / (3! * (5-3)!)
= 5! / (3! * 2!)

Now let's calculate the factorial of 5, 3, and 2:

5! = 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 120
3! = 3 * 2 * 1 = 6
2! = 2 * 1 = 2

Plugging the factorial values back into the formula:

C(5, 3) = 120 / (6 * 2)
= 120 / 12
= 10

Therefore, there are 10 ways to select 3 oranges from the bowl of fruit.