Strange Pet Collection
All except 2 of my pets are dogs.
All except 2 of my pets are cats.
All except 2 of my pets are birds.
How many pets do I have?
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2 solutions
Discussions for this problem are now closed
but when the que is telling for sure that all pets are dogs except 2, all pets are cats except 2, and all pets are birds except 2, why is the ans (d)? I mean shudn't it be (a)? We cant consider that the pets are not dogs, cats or birds. Please explain why it should be option (d).
It can be 2 in the case all pets are not dogs, cats or birds.
it can also be 3 in the case he (if it actually is real) has 1 dog, 1 cat and 1 bird.
But, strictly speaking, the answer should be impossible. As he says 'dog s , cat s and bird s ', he means there are more than one of each, which doesn't happen...
exactly my point too... :-)
The mistake is supposing that there are at least one dog , one cat and one bird .is precisely the thing on which is based the problem. is like the egg of Columbus, if you know it. Anyway thanks for comment :)
I never said that i have at least 1 cat, dog or bird. so x -2 are dogs, x - 2 are cats and x -2 are birds ( x is the number of my Animals). It can be x ={2} or x={3}. So i ll have, in the first case, 2-2 cats , dogs and birds . 0 cats , dog and birds means that i have 2 Animals that are not these . if you have orher questions ask :)
not very clear to me... i thought ans is impossible
@Debprateem Gupta – the ans is 3 if 1 of them is dog, another is cat and the last one is a bird. but if they were 1 cow and 1 goat, then also the statements satisfies.
Suppose you have one elephant and one monkey. Now all three statements are satisfied. So, 2 is an answer. And other solution is straight forward, 1 cat,1dog and 1 bird :)
No, these statements are not satisfied if you have one elephant and one monkey. The first statement is "All except 2 of my pets are dogs". If you have two pets and both aren't dogs, what does 'ALL' refer to in this question? The word 'ALL' must refer to all your pets. If not, it must refer to all animals including your pets which cannot be the case. So, total number of pets = 3 and not either 2 or 3.
@Sriram Hariharakrishnan – All refers to the monkey and the elephant. So all except 2( that are these 2) are dog. So the dog are 0. equally so to the dogs and the birds
@Sriram Hariharakrishnan – ALL refers to nothing
Please Write a solution saying this
When you say "all except" doesn't that mean that there must be "at least one" dog or cat or bird exists?
Not necessarily. We can make statements about the empty set.
For example, "All except 1 of my cars are Mercedes". That doesn't imply that I must own a Mercedes.
For a slightly more mind boggling scenario: "All the Mercedes I own are blue" and "All the Mercedes I own are red" are both true statements, even though they seem contradictory at first glance. Statements about the empty set can be particularly tricky.
Thanks for help! :D
Your response was very helpful for me to understand the question...
Not really.
I am sorry but this doesn't make sense .. based on the way this question is phrased it can't be 2 pets if i have two pets (based on your answer i can't have dogs, cats or birds so let's take a hamster and a fish for example) and you say all except 2 of my pets are dogs that means all except the hamster and the fish and you are left with no pets .. the question suggest that you have at least one dog, one cat and one bird and we can't assume otherwise
I never said that i have at least 1 cat, dog or bird. so x -2 are dogs, x - 2 are cats and x -2 are birds ( x is the number of my Animals). It can be x ={2} or x={3}. So i ll have, in the first case, 2-2 cats , dogs and birds . 0 cats , dog and birds means that i have 2 Animals that are not these ones. Hoping that now it is clear. Thanks for comment
but u have them
This is not making sense to me.3 is fine.If there is nothing other than 2 animals why should we call it using a name?.
;=; ambiguous
wrong ans 2 or 3 since according to ques dog cat and bird are present in pets
I don't think total number of pets could be 2. This is because from the question we understand that there is at least a dog, a cat and a bird and also it says that "All except 2 of the pets..." for all the cases. That means, if the total number of pets as you have suggested is 2, then one of the pets mentioned will be ruled out. Which is wrong! Therefore, the answer is 3 pets.
Never said that there are at least one cat, dog or bird
Well, you shouldn't have mentioned the pet by its name that you don't have then. I think it might work when we talk about sets that deal with VARIABLES. But, it's not logical for me when it comes to this kind of question. Dog cannot be a variable; Neither does cat nor bird. The question itself suggests that at least you have a dog, a cat AND a bird. So, what's the point of calling them by their name and indicating that some number of each of them are your pet?
I'm sorry but this problem is similar to this... https://brilliant.org/community-problem/pet-show/?group=tE0kvlfElaZs&ref_id=433873
Also, would 1 dog, 1 cat, 1 bird answer not nullify the statement ... are dogs, are cats.. are birds...? (I know this is about grammar but I guess that's also important when answering word problems)
Just a thought. hehe
2 is not logical.
The question that you linked to is multiple choice, and only 1 of the options satisfied the conditions of the question.
Yes, I understand your point regarding choices. Now how about the second point, regarding ... are birds, are dogs, ... are cats, when one possible answer is 1 dog, 1 cat, 1 bird?
@Neil Michael Crisostomo – The case of having 1 dog, 1 cat, 1 bird satisfies the conditions of the question, and is the solution to having 3 pets.
The verb "are" is associated to the phrase "All except 2". It does not matter whether or not the number is more than 2, or not.
@Calvin Lin – If we are going to go on a technicality here based upon this wording, then I do believe the correct answer should actually be "impossible", because the question doesn't say "How many pets COULD I have"... it says "How many pets DO I have"... as in, what is the "EXACT" quantity of pets that I ACTUALLY own, not what I could POTENTIALLY own...
@Taylor Shobe – Nice catch.
@Chinmaya Dabral – Thanks, Chinmaya!
@Calvin Lin – Got it! Thank you!
If you have 2 pets, 1 of yours 3 statements is untrue or unnecessary. You do not have crocodile, but you can say 'All except 2 of my pets are crocodiles' too?
Yes, i wrote it in the prpblem
And why the statement 'All except 2 of my pets are crocodiles' is not included?
@Mari Za – Just because a statement is true, doesn't mean that i must be included in the problem statement.
If not, you might as well ask "Why didn't you include the answer in the question?"
@Mari Za – I mean that it a wrote that "all" doesn't mean almost one
wow......nice question!
but you have dog, cat, and bird. never said that one statement is can be not included ..
Brilliant!
what you are saying is x-2dogs,x-2cats,x-2birds all combing can show 2 pets. but if third pet is not their i.e. zero countable pets . than this is not a clear explanation about question , that all pets except two pet which are dogs should exist.
I had the same problem that many others faced..How can I imagine that there were no cats,no dogs and no birds when their names are all included...
The best Way to check ones mental ability!!
Thanks for your comment :)
U can have one of each pets to satisfy all conditions or u can have none of them....so two cases possible .....either having 3 or having 2 pets
You can have 1 dog , 1 cat and 1 bird so 3 is correct. But you can also have 2 Animals which are not dogs , cats and birds because you have x-2 dogs , x -2 cats and x-2 birds where x is the number of the animals. So you can have x= 3 or x=2.