prep1- of the 75 houses in a certain community, 48 have a patio, how many of the houses have a swimming pool?
(1)38 of the houses in the community have a patio but don't have a swimming pool
(2)the number of houses in the community that have a patio and a swimming pool is equal to the number of houses in the community that have neither a swimming pool nor a patio.
Let x=the number of houses that have both patio and sp; y=the number of houses that only have sp; z= the number of houses that have neither patio and sp.
Then, the number of houses that only have patio is (48-x). And 48+y+z=75. We want to know what is (x+y), i.e. the number of houses that have sp.
From (2), x=z. So x+y=z+y=75-48=27. (2) is sufficient.
If it's hard to understand for you, then drawing a picture might help a lot.