The first step in solving this problem is subtracting 8 from 26. Doing this will remove the difference between the 2 groups, 26-8=18. This means that out of 18 students there is an equal number of males and females because we already removed the 8 more male students. So, divide 18 by 2 to get the number of female students, 9. Since we know that there are 8 more males than females and 9+8=17; there must be 17 male students. Additionally, to check you can add 9 and 17 which equals 26, so the answer is correct.
