Mrs. Bollo's second grade class of thirty students conducted a pet ownership survey. Results of the survey

indicate that 8 students own a cat, 15 students own a dog, and 5 students own both a cat and a dog. How
many of the students surveyed own no cats?

The question needs to be more clearly worded.

If those 8 owning a cat includes those that may also also own a dog, and those 15 owning a dog include those that might own a cat, then there are 15 + 8 -5 = 18 with a dog or a cat or both. That leaves 12 with neither.

There is another way the question could be interpreted. The eight might own ONLY cats and the 15 might own only dogs, with an additional 5 owning both. Then you get a different answer.

There are also students that own neither. The questions are not written well. Do you have an example of one the teacher did so we have something to work from to know what (s)he is asking?

To find out how many students surveyed own no cats, we need to subtract the number of students who own both a cat and a dog from the total number of students who own a cat.

We know that 8 students own a cat, and 5 students own both a cat and a dog. Therefore, the number of students who own only a cat is the difference between these two numbers: 8 - 5 = 3.

So, there are 3 students who own only a cat.

To find the number of students who own no cats, we subtract the number of students who own only a cat from the total number of students surveyed.

The total number of students surveyed is 30, so the number of students who own no cats is 30 - 3 = 27.

Therefore, 27 students surveyed own no cats.

The answer's right in the question. How many do you see that do not have cats?