What is the probability that a particular top executive reads either Time or U.S. News & World Report regular?

Question

A survey of top executives revealed that 35% of them regularly read Time magazine, 20% read Newsweek and 40% read U.S. News & World Report. Ten percent read both Time and U.S. News & World Report. What is the probability that a particular top executive reads either Time or U.S. News & World Report regularly?

A) 0.85

B) 0.06

C) 1.00

D) 0.65

E) None of the above

Answer 1

First of all, you can forget about 20% of Newsweek reader, it's there to confuse you.

35% read TM, 40% read US&WR, and 10% read both.

To put it simply, the 10% that read both, are already included in 35% TM and 40% US&WR.

So, to find the percentage of reader that read either TM or US&WR, you just have to add the two individual percentage, and subtract it with the percentage for both.

= 40% + 35 % - 10 %

= 65%

The answer is D.

Answer 2

We add the 35% of executives who read Time to the 20% who read News & World Report and subtract the 10 that were double-counted to discover 45% of executives read either Time or News & World Report.

The answer is E, none of the above.