Zohair123 wrote:
One important doubt here, it says 56 different groups, but it does not say that there CAN ONLY BE 56 groups. So even if we take 4 people out of 8 (where it's the maximum number of configurations possible), we CAN TAKE 56 different groups from this list. So shouldn't 4 be included as well?
Great question!!
Many students have posed very similar questions.
For example, if a question tells us that
A woman owns 5 dogs, must we assume that she has
exactly 5 dogs?
After all, she could have 6 dogs, since it would still be true that there are 5 dogs in her possession (plus 1 more).
If this were the accepted standard, it would be next to impossible to phrase questions that are free from ambiguity.
So, on the GRE, if you're told that there are X things, we can assume that there are exactly X things.
So, for the question above, we can assume that there are exactly 56 different k-person committees possible.
If the author intended to phrase the question as you are suggesting, it would read something like "
From a group of 8 people, we can create AT LEAST 56 different k-person committees. Which of the following could be the value of k?"
Cheers,
Brent