Bakayev E.V.

Forty children were holding hands in a circle. Out of them, 22 were holding hands with a boy and 30 were holding hands with a girl. How many girls were in the circle?

#
$22+30=52$, so $52-40=12$ children held hands with both a boy and a girl. Therefore, $30-12=18$ children held hands only with girls. These 18 children held $18 \cdot 2=36$ girls' hands, and the other 12 held one girl's hand each, so the girls had a total of $36+12=48$ hands. Therefore, there were $48: 2=24$ girls.

## Answer

24 girls.