GMAT Practice Question: The subsets of the set \{w, x, y\} are...

Step 1

To count the number of subsets containing w, use the multiplication (AND) rule: multiply the number of options for each element.

Step 2

w must be included in every subset, so there is only one option for w (it is always present).

1

Step 3

For x, it can either be included or not included in the subset, so there are 2 options for x.

2

Step 4

For y, it can either be included or not included in the subset, so there are 2 options for y.

2

Step 5

For z, it can either be included or not included in the subset, so there are 2 options for z.

2

Step 6

Multiply the number of options for each element to get the total number of subsets containing w.

1 \times 2 \times 2 \times 2 = 8