Ice cream flavors A survey was taken among 600 middle school students for their preferred ice cream flavours. 250 like strawberry 100 liked both strawberry and vanilla 130 like strawberry but not chocolate 120 like only vanilla 300 like only one flavor 270 students said they liked vanilla 30 students like all three flavors Questions: How many do not like any of the 3 flavors? How many like at least one of the 3 flavors? How many like at least 2 flavors? How many like chocolate?

Jeremiah Moore

Jeremiah Moore

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2022-09-03

Ice cream flavorsA survey was taken among 600 middle school students for their preferred ice cream flavours.- 250 like strawberry- 100 liked both strawberry and vanilla- 130 like strawberry but not chocolate- 120 like only vanilla- 300 like only one flavor- 270 students said they liked vanilla- 30 students like all three flavorsQuestions:- How many do not like any of the 3 flavors?- How many like at least one of the 3 flavors?- How many like at least 2 flavors?- How many like chocolate?

Answer & Explanation

Harmony Horn

Harmony Horn

Beginner2022-09-04Added 11 answers

Unless there is a trick I missed, your problem seems impossible for me, as I can find a lot of possible answers.There are 8 possibilities for each student, and we have only 6 constraints, which isn't enough in the general case. Have you forgotten 2 others ?EDIT : So the question has been updated. Now there are more constraints, and the problem has one unique solution. The resolution with this instance is quite straightforward, but I'll do it step by step. You have 8 variables that you want to know the value :a : Strawberry only ;b : Vanilla only ;c : Chocolate only ;d : Strawberry and vanilla but not chocolate ;e : Strawberry and chocolate but not vanilla ;f : Vanilla and chocolate but not strawberry ;g : All three ;h : None.You already know that b=120 and g=30. Constraint 2 states that 100 students like both strawberry and vanilla. But that doesn't forbid them to like chocolate. So we have d+g=100 so d=70.In the same way, constraint 3 gives us a+d=130 so a=60. Constraint 5 says that a+b+c=300 so c=120 ; constraint 6 that b+d+f+g=270 so f=50 and constraint 1 that a+d+e+g=250 so e=90. Finally, h=600−a−b−c−d−e−f−g=60.So your answers are h ; 600−h ; d+e+f+g and c+e+f+g. So 60 ; 540 ; 240 and 390.Nota bene : So I said earlier that this kind of problem can't be solved if the number of constraints isn't equal to the number of variables (which is 2number of possbilities), in the general case.There are trivial edge cases, for example if two constraints contradict themselves(a=10 and a=20), we know that the problem is unfeasible. If some constraints are repeating themselves (a+b=20 ; b+c=30 ; a+c=40 ; a+b+c=45), we will need additional constraints.But there are funny cases where the number of constraints is inferior to the number of variables, but the problem still has one unique solution. This happens because the way the problem is stated, there as hidden constraints : all variables must be >0. A trivial example is "There are 100 students who are asked if they like A and B. 100 said they like A but not B." 4 variables and only 1 constraint, but we still have all the information we need.

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