Sorry if my title sounds vague and inaccurate. I can't think of a better way to put it lol. Anyway, I stumbled upon this problem today while preparing for Oxford tsa: A survey of households in a town showed that (allowing for sampling errors) between 75% and 85% owned a dishwasher, between 35% and 40% owned a tumble dryer and less than 5% owned neither. How many people own both a tumble dryer and a dishwasher? In which the answer is: "between 10% and 30%" I spent lots of time trying to figure out how to solve it but to no avail. The inclusion of the ranges in a typical Venn diagram question totally throws me off. Can anyone help me with this?

spremani0r

spremani0r

Answered question

2022-09-04

Sorry if my title sounds vague and inaccurate. I can't think of a better way to put it lol. Anyway, I stumbled upon this problem today while preparing for Oxford tsa:
A survey of households in a town showed that (allowing for sampling errors) between 75% and 85% owned a dishwasher, between 35% and 40% owned a tumble dryer and less than 5% owned neither.
How many people own both a tumble dryer and a dishwasher?
In which the answer is: "between 10% and 30%"
I spent lots of time trying to figure out how to solve it but to no avail. The inclusion of the ranges in a typical Venn diagram question totally throws me off. Can anyone help me with this?

Answer & Explanation

Sanaa Holder

Sanaa Holder

Beginner2022-09-05Added 20 answers

The relevant groups are: A: People who have both a dryer and a dishwasher, B: People who have a tumble dryer but not a dishwasher, C: People who have a dishwasher but not a tumble dryer, and D:
People who have neither a tumble dryer or a dishwasher. Note that every person (or household) belongs to exactly one of these groups, thus A+B+C+D=100%. Express the rest of your givens in terms of these groups, and the answer should come easily.
Randall Booker

Randall Booker

Beginner2022-09-06Added 3 answers

If the numbers were certain, you could use P(A∩B)=P(A)+P(B)−P(A∪B) But since the numbers are not certain, you have to look at "best case" and "worst case" scenarios.
The higher P(A) and P(B) are, the higher the P(A∩B) will be. Since P(A∪B) is known (0.95), you have no room to move there. To make P(A∩B) large, assume that both the dishwasher and dryer ownership numbers are also high. So
Phigh=0.85+0.40−0.95=0.3
Similarly with the lower number.

Do you have a similar question?

Recalculate according to your conditions!

New Questions in Research Methodology

Ask your question.
Get an expert answer.

Let our experts help you. Answer in as fast as 15 minutes.

Didn't find what you were looking for?