there are 7 apples and 3 pears in a basket . in how many different ways can we pick an apple ?

7, since there are 7 apples.

I suspect you have omitted something.

To determine the number of ways we can pick an apple from the basket, we need to consider that there are 7 apples in total. Since we only want to pick one apple at a time, we have 7 options to choose from.

Therefore, the number of different ways we can pick an apple from the basket is 7.