sandy wrote:
In a class of 25 students, each student studies either Spanish, Latin, or French, or two of the three, but no students study all three languages. 9 study Spanish, 7 study Latin, and 5 study exactly two languages.
Quantity A |
Quantity B |
The number of students who study French |
14 |
A) Quantity A is greater.
B) Quantity B is greater.
C) The two quantities are equal.
D) The relationship cannot be determined from the information given.
I'm not a big fan of memorizing formulas, so here's a way to solve the question using diagrams.
We're going to start from the center and work our way out.
Each student studies either Spanish, Latin, or French, or two of the three, but no students study all three languages.First we can place 0 in the intersection of all three circles.
5 study exactly two languageSince we aren't told that the distribution of those five students who study exactly two languages, we can distribute them anyway we want.
Here's one option:
9 study Spanish, 7 study LatinWe'll add 5 and 4 in order to meet the conditions above
There are 25 students in the classSo far, we've accounted for 14 of the 25 students.
So the remaining 11 students must study only French
So the TOTAL number of students studying French = 2 + 0 + 1 + 11 =
14We get:
Quantity A:
14Quantity B: 14
Answer: C
Cheers,
Brent
"Since we aren't told that the distribution of those five students who study exactly two languages, we can distribute them anyway we want.
What if french is 2 & 2 (intersection points with latin and Spanish) instead of the 2 & 1 you'd taken?