A group of 8 friends (5 girls and 3 boys) plans to watch a movie, but they have only 5 tickets. how many different combinations of 5 friends could possibly receive the tickets?

As order is not important in this problem, we make use of the concept of Combination. A group of 5 people should be picked out of the 8. In mathematical notation, the possible combinations (P) is 8C5. This is equal to 56. Thus, there are 56 different ways to which 5 people can be selected.