.
Among 70 students, a survey shows that:
23 were taking Physics, 25 were taking Biology, 22 were taking Chemistry
6 were taking Physics and Biology, 7 were taking Biology and Chemistry, 8 were taking Chemistry and Physics
2 were taking Physics, Biology and chemistry.
(a) How many of the students were taking none of the three sciences?
(b) How many were taking just one of the three subjects?
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You are given the universal set U of 70 students and 3 its basic subsets P, B and C
(see the table below).
U 70 total students
P 23 Physics
B 25 Biology
C 22 Chemistry
Also, you are given info about their in-pair intersections and about their triple intersection.
PB 6 Physics and Biology
BC 7 Biology and Chemistry
PC 8 Chemistry and Physics
PBC 2 Physics, Biology and chemistry
Having this info well organized, you can easily answer all questions (a), and (b).
(a) The set of students not taking any of the three subjects is U \ (P U B U C).
So, calculate the number of students in the union (P U B U C} first.
For it, use the inclusion-exclusion princuple/(formula)
n(P U B U C) = n(P) + n(B) + n(C) - n(PB) - n(BC) - n(PC) + n(PBC) =
= 23 + 25 + 22 - 6 - 7 - 8 + 2 = 51.
Now the next step gives the answer to question (a) :
the number of students taking none of the three sciences = 70 - 51 = 19. ANSWER
(b) The number of students taking Physics only, n(Po), is
n(Po) = n(P) - n(PB) - n(PC) + n(PBC) = 23 - 6 - 8 + 2 = 11.
The number of students taking Biology only, n(Bo), is
n(Bo) = n(B) - n(PB) - n(BC) + n(PBC) = 25 - 6 - 7 + 2 = 14.
The number of students taking Chemistry only, n(Co), is
n(Co) = n(C) - n(PC) - n(BC) + n(PBC) = 22 - 8 - 7 + 2 = 9.
The number of students taking just one of the three subjects is
n(Po) + n(Bo) + n(Co) = 11 + 14 + 9 = 34.
Solved.
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On inclusion-exclusion principle, see this Wikipedia article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusion%E2%80%93exclusion_principle
To see many other similar (and different) solved problems, see the lessons
- Counting elements in sub-sets of a given finite set
- Advanced problems on counting elements in sub-sets of a given finite set
- Challenging problems on counting elements in subsets of a given finite set
- Selected problems on counting elements in subsets of a given finite set
- Inclusion-Exclusion principle problems
in this site.
Happy learning (!)