SET Theory

and Venn
DiAGRAM
Set Theory is a branch of mathematical logic where we learn sets and their
properties. A set is a collection of objects or groups of objects. These objects are
often called elements or members of a set. For example, a group of players in a
cricket team is a set.

Definition of Sets
As we have already learned in the introduction, set is a well-defined collection of
objects or people. Sets can be related to many real-life examples, such as the
number of rivers in India, number of colours in a rainbow, etc.
Representation of Sets
Sets can be represented in two ways:
1.Roster Form or Tabular form
2.Set Builder Form

Roster Form:
In roster form, all the elements of the set are listed, separated by commas and enclosed
between curly braces { }.
Example: If set represents all the leap years between the year 1995 and 2015, then it
would be described using Roster form as:
A ={1996,2000,2004,2008,2012}

 Set Builder Form:

In set builder form, all the elements have a common property. This property is not
applicable to the objects that do not belong to the set.
Example: If set S has all the elements which are even prime numbers, it is represented
as:
S={ x: x is an even prime number}
where ‘x’ is a symbolic representation that is used to describe the element.
‘:’ means ‘such that’
‘{}’ means ‘the set of all’
Types of Sets
The sets are further categorized into different types, based on elements or
types of elements. These different types of sets in basic set theory are:

•Finite set: The number of elements is finite

•Infinite set: The number of elements are infinite
•Empty set: It has no elements
•Singleton set: It has one only element
•Equal set: Two sets are equal if they have same elements
•Equivalent set: Two sets are equivalent if they have same number of
elements
•Subset: When all the elements of set A belong to set B, then A is subset
of B
•Power set: A set of every possible subset.
•Universal set: Any set that contains all the sets under consideration.
 Set Operations
The four important set operations that are widely used are:

I. Union of sets
II. Intersection of sets
III. Complement of sets
IV.Difference of sets

 Union of Sets Definition:

The union of two sets X and Y is equal to the set of elements that are present in set
X, in set Y, or in both the sets X and Y. This operation can be represented as;

X ∪ Y = {a: a ∈ X or a ∈ Y}

Let us consider an example, say; set A = {1, 3, 5} and set B = {1, 2, 4} then;

A ∪ B = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5}
Venn Diagram of Union of Sets:

Let us consider a universal set U such that A and B are the subsets of this universal
set. The union of two sets A and B is defined as the set of all the elements which lie
in set A and set B or both the elements in A and B altogether. The union of the set is
denoted by the symbol ‘∪’.

C = A ∪ B = {x : x ∈ A or x ∈ B}
What is Intersection of Sets?
The intersection of sets A and B is the set of all elements which are common to both
A and B.

A ∩ B = {x : x ∈ A and x ∈ B}

Suppose A is the set of even numbers less than 10 and B is the set of the first five
multiples of 4, then the intersection of these two can be identified as given below:

A = {2, 4, 6, 8}
B = {4, 8, 12, 16, 20}

The elements common to A and B are 4 and 8.

Therefore, the set of elements in the intersection A and B = {4, 8}

Intersection of Sets Using Venn Diagram
Complement of a Set Definition
If U is a universal set and A be any subset of U then the complement of A is the set
of all members of the universal set U which are not the elements of A.

Alternatively it can be said that the difference of the universal set U and the subset A
gives us the complement of set A.

Venn Diagram for the Complement of a set

What is the Difference of Sets?
The difference of the two sets A and B is the set of elements which are present in A
but not in B. It is denoted as A-B. In the following diagram, the region shaded in
green represents the difference of sets A and B (A-B). And the region shaded in
yellow represents the difference of B and A (B-A).
What is a Subset?

Set A is said to be a subset of Set B if all the elements of Set A are also present in Set
B. In other words, set A is contained inside Set B.

Example: If set A has {X, Y} and set B has {X, Y, Z}, then A is the subset of B
because elements of A are also present in set B.

Subset Symbol

In set theory, a subset is denoted by the symbol ⊆ and read as ‘is a subset of’.
Using this symbol we can express subsets as follows:

A ⊆ B; which means Set A is a subset of Set B.

Note: A subset can be equal to the set. That is, a subset can contain all the elements
that are present in the set.
Types of Subsets

Subsets are classified as

I.Proper Subset
II.Improper Subsets

A proper subset is one that contains a few elements of the original set whereas an
improper subset, contains every element of the original set along with the null set.

For example, if set A = {2, 4, 6}, then,

Number of subsets: {2}, {4}, {6}, {2,4}, {4,6}, {2,6}, {2,4,6} and Φ or {}.

Proper Subsets: {}, {2}, {4}, {6}, {2,4}, {4,6}, {2,6}

Improper Subset: {2,4,6}

How many subsets and proper subsets does a set have?

If a set has “n” elements, then the number of subset of the given set is 2n and
the number of proper subsets of the given subset is given by 2n-1.

Power Set
The power set is said to be the collection of all the subsets. It is represented by
P(A).
If A is set having elements {a, b}. Then the power set of A will be;
P(A) = {∅, {a}, {b}, {a, b}}

Properties of Subsets
Some of the important properties of subsets are:

Every set is considered as a subset of the given set itself. It means that X ⊂ X
or Y ⊂ Y, etc.
We can say, an empty set is considered as a subset of every set.
X is a subset of Y. It means that X is contained in Y
If a set X is a subset of set Y, we can say that Y is a superset of X
A={3,6,8,9}

B={4,5,6,8}

C={1,2,4,8,9}

D={4,5,6,7,8}

Q. Which of the following is true about the relationship between sets?

A.B⊆D

B.C⊆B

C.A⊆C

D.D⊆B

Ans: A
Q. Which of the following is not a subset of Set A:{ 2,4,7,11} ?
A.{4,7}
B.{7,12}
C.{2,4,7}
D.{2,7,11}

Ans: B

Q. Which of the following is NOT a subset of Set A: {3,4,7,11,14,21}

A.{3,8}
B.{3,4}
C.∅
D.{4,7,11}

Ans: A
Q. Which of the following sets is not an infinite set?

A.Z
B.All numbers x between 0 and 1
C.All whole numbers x, 0≤x≤5
D.Q

Ans: C

Q. Which of the following is a finite set?

A.N
B.All whole numbers between 0 and 2, inclusive
C.R
D.All real numbers between 0 and 2

Ans: B
Q: Let S = {0, 1, 5, 4, 7}. Then the total number of subsets of S is
(a) 64
(b) 32
(c) 40
(d) 20

Ans: B

Q: A and B are two sets such that A∪B has 18 elements If A has 8 elements and
B has 15 elements then the number of elements in A∩B will be:

a)5
b)8
c)7
d)4

Ans: A
Q: Which of the following is the empty set?
(a) {x : x is a real number and x2 – 1 = 0}
(b) {x : x is a real number and x2 + 1 = 0}
(c) {x : x is a real number and x2 – 9 = 0}
(d) {x : x is a real number and x2 = x + 2}

Ans: B

Q: If a set A has 3 elements and B has 6 elements, then the minimum number of
elements in A∪B is
(a) 6
(b) 3
(c) 9
(d) None of these

Ans: A
Q: If (1, 3), (2, 5) and (3, 3) are three elements of A x B and the total number of
elements in A x B is 6, then the remaining elements of A x B are
(a) (1, 5); (2, 3); (3, 5)
(b) (5, 1); (3, 2); (5, 3)
(c) (1, 5); (2, 3); (5, 3)
(d) None of these

Ans: A

Q: The set of all prime numbers is

(a) A finite set
(b) A singleton set
(c) An infinite set
(d) None of these

Ans: C
Q. There is a total of 200 students in class XI. 120 of them study mathematics, 50
students study commerce and 30 students study both mathematics and commerce.
Find the number of students who

i) Study mathematics but not commerce

ii) Study commerce but not mathematics
iii) Study mathematics or commerce

Ans: i) 90 ii)20 iii)140

Q. Suppose X and Y are two sets, such that n(X)=17,n(Y)=23 and n(X ∪Y)=38
, then find n(X∩Y)
(a) 6
(b) 2
(c) 4
(d) 0

Ans: b
Q. In a survey of 700 students in a college, 180 were listed as drinking Limca, 275
as drinking Miranda, and 95 were listed as both drinking Limca and Miranda. Find
how many students were drinking, neither Limca nor Miranda.
(a) 340
(b) 240
(c) 400
(d) 234

Ans: A

Q. In a group of 100 persons, 72 people can speak English and 43 can speak
French. How many can speak English only?
(a) 34
(b) 24
(c) 57
(d) 23

Ans: C
Venn Diagram
Logical Venn Diagram:

Venn, a British mathematician, developed what are called Venn diagrams

mainly to illustrate the principles of Set Theory and certain operations on sets.
 This type of diagram is extensively used in scientific and engineering
presentations, in theoretical Mathematics, in Computer applications and in
Statistics.
 In general, Venn Diagrams are logical diagrams, in which various items and
their relationships are represented by circles or other types of diagrams.
 In these questions, you will be presented with different classes or groups of
familiar objects and you will be asked to identify their mutual relationships.
 This requires a logical understanding and careful observation of diagrams.
The following Applications will explain the different types of questions under
this category.
Ans: B
Ans: D
Ans: B
Ans: D
Ans: B
Ans: B

Ans: D
Answer from the following figure:

Ans: A
Ans: C

Ans: B

Ans: B

Ans: D
Ans: C

Ans: D
Ans: B

Ans: D
Practice questions
1. In a survey, it was found that 65% of the people would watch news on TV,
40% read in newspaper, 25% read newspaper and watched TV. What
percentage of people neither watched TV nor read newspaper?

a) 0%
b) 5%
c) 10%
d) 20%

Ans: D
2. In a class, 20 opted for Physics, 17 for Math's, 5 for both and 10 for other
subjects. The class contains how many students?

a) 35
b) 42
c) 52
d) 60

Ans: B
3. In a competition, a school awarded medals in different categories. 36
medals in dance, 12 medals in dramatics and 18 medals in music. If these
medals went to a total of 45 persons and only 4 persons got medals in all the
three categories, how many received medals in exactly two of these
categories?

a)12
b)13
c)14
d)15

Ans: B
4. In a class of 50 students, 18 take Chorus, 26 take Band, and 2 take both
Chorus and Band. How many students in the class are not enrolled in
either Chorus or Band?

a) 12
b) 4
c) 8
d) 6

Ans: B
5.A veterinarian surveys 26 of his patrons. He discovers that 14 have dogs,
10 have cats, and 5 have fish. Four have dogs and cats, 3 have dogs and
fish, and one has a cat and fish. If no one has all three kinds of pets, how
many patrons have none of these pets?

a)6
b)0
c)5
d)3

Ans: C