Which one of the following is a pair of buildings that, if inspected on the same day as each other, must be inspected...

mahosmar January 30, 2020

Variable Placement

Hello- In this question, do the order of buildings in the answer choices imply the order in which the inspections happens? So for example, answer A says "Grace and Jacaranda". Does this mean that when filling in a hypothetical, you would put Grace in the morning and Jacaranda in the afternoon? Or could they be placed in either the morning or afternoon? Especially with the rules not being super prescriptive in this game, this question seems to have many combinations to try (and could take a lot of time). Please advise of a the best strategy for this type of situation.

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Irina January 30, 2020

@mahosmar,

Thank you for your question. This order of buildings in the answer choices does not imply the order of inspections, otherwise, the question would say so explicitly and be phrased similar to "which one of the following is a pair of buildings ..must be inspected on Monday in the order listed / in the morning and afternoon respectively / in the following order. "

The best way to approach this question is to look back at the initial setup instead of trying every answer choice. The game involves an inspection of six buildings over three days:

m 3H = G J L
a 3R= S V Z
M T W

The following rules apply to the inspections:

(1) Hotels are not inspected on W.

This rule tells us that hotels must be inspected on M and W , meaning one of these days must involve inspection of two hotels and the other day - 1 hotel and 1 restaurant. This rule also tells us that two restaurants are inspected on W.

This leaves us with two possible scenarios:

(a)

m H H/R R 3H = G J L
a H R/H R 3R= S V Z
M T W

(b)

m H/R H R 3H = G J L
a R/H H R 3R= S V Z
M T W

(2) G is inspected before J.

This rule tells us that G cannot be inspected on T afternoon, and J cannot be inspected on M morning. There are only five possible placements for G & J per this rule:

m G
a J
M

or

m G J
a
M T

m G
a J
M T
or

m J
a G
M T
or

m G
a J
T

I would not actually write all five out on the exam, this is for illustration purposes mostly. The main inference here is that G can be paired only with J on Tuesday, and if G is on Monday it could either be paired with J or with L or a restaurant.

(3)G is not inspected on the same day as S.

This rule tells us that G must either be inspected with another hotel - J/L or if it is inspected with another restaurant it must be inspected with either V/Z. Per our scenarios above, we can see that if G is inspected on Monday, it must be inspected with either J, L, V or Z. If G is inspected on Tuesday, it can only be with J.

Looking at the answer choices, we can eliminate (A) right away because GJ pair could either be on M or T. And we can conclude that (B) G & V is the correct answer because if G is inspected on the same day as any other property but J, it MUST be on Monday per our inferences above.

Let's briefly look at why the other answer choices are wrong.

(C) J & L. If J is inspected on Monday, it must be inspected with G, thus this combination is impossible.

(D) L & S. It is possible that L &S are inspected on the same day and it could be Monday or it could be Tuesday, in which case G & J are inspected on Monday.

(E) L & V. Same as (D) they could be inspected on Monday, but could also be inspected on Tuesday, hence it is not the case that they MUST be inspected on Monday.

Let me know if this helps and if you have any other questions.