Dear Reader,
Below are three questions with 3 statements each. You have to interpret these statements and count the number of objects mentioned in the questions.

Question 1

Raman, Krishnan and Govindan are close friends. One day Raman told the below lines to his two friends:
Of all pets I have, except 4, all are dogs
Of all pets I have, except 4, all are parrots
Of all pets I have, except 4, all are Goldfish
How many dogs , parrots and Goldfish are there with Raman?

a) 3 dogs,3 parrots ,3Goldfish
b) 2 dogs,2 parrots, 2 Gold fish
c) 4 dogs,4 parrots ,4 Gold fish
d) none of these.

Answer : b) 2 dogs,2 parrots, 2 Gold fish

Solution :

All the statements said by Raman will be true only if he has 2 dogs, 2 parrots and 2 gold fish. i.e There are 6 pets in total with 2 of each kind. This means, except 6 - 2 = 4, all are of a particular kind. This is what is being said in all the statements.

Question 2

Akbar told his friends Amar and Antony that he is fond of possessing multiple cell phones and added as follows:
OF all cell phones I have, except 6, all are Nokia cell phones
OF all cell phones I have, except 5, all are Samsung cell phones
OF all cell phones I have, except 7, all are LG cell phones.
How many Nokia, Samsung and LG cell phones?

a) 2 Nokia cell phones, 2 Samsung cell phones and 2 LG cell phones
b) 3 Nokia cell phones, 2 Samsung cell phones and 3 LG cell phones
c) 3 Nokia cell phones, 4 Samsung cell phones and 2 LG cell phones
d) 3 Nokia cell phones, 3 Samsung cell phones and 3 LG cell phones

Answer : c) 3 Nokia cell phones, 4 Samsung cell phones and 2 LG cell phones

Solution :

Again this question has to be solved by looking at options one by one. While we are leaving the exercise of inspecting each option for your practice, we will just see why option c is right.
Option c states that there are 3 Nokia cell phones, 4 Samsung cell phones and 2 LG cell phones.

The above option implies the below three things :
i) Except 3 Nokia + 4 Samsung = 7 cell phones, all the remaining 2 are LG cell phones
ii) Except 3 Nokia + 2 LG = 5 cell phones, all the remaining 4 are Samsung phones
iii) Except 2 LG + 4 Samsung = 6 cell phones, all the remaining 3 are Nokia phones.

All the above three interpretations coincide exactly with those given in question. Hence option c has to be right.

Question 3

Before the marriage, Saravanan told Meenakshi as follows,
Of all the independent houses I own, except 10 all are two bed room houses
Of all the independent houses I own, except 10 all are three bed room houses
Of all the independent house I own, except 10 all are single bed room houses.
How many two bed room / three bed room / single bed room houses did Saravanan own?

a) 10 two bed room, 10 three bed room and 10 single bed room houses
b) 5 two bed room, 5 three bed room and 5 single bed room houses
c) 5 two bed room, 10 three bed room and 5 single bed room houses
d) None of these.

Answer : b) 5 two bed room, 5 three bed room and 5 single bed room houses

Solution :

This question is very much similar to the first question and is much easier than second question.
Saravanan owns 5 two bed room houses, 5 three bed room houses and 5 single bed room houses and that is why he says “Of all the independent houses I own, except 10 all are two bed room houses and so on…”