If lilies are used by exactly two of the people, and if of those two, only one uses any hyacinths, then those two peo...

Skylar on February 11, 2020

@Tucker-Sutlive, happy to help.

We can set up the game as follows:
S: R R __ __
T: H G __ __
U: R H H __
W: G G __ __
Z: H R __ __

Note that we get this setup by transcribing the rules. We also assigned a second H to U because of the 5th rule which states only Z has exactly one H and exactly one R. Since U originally had exactly one R and at least one H, we added another H so that it would not break Rule 5 by copying Z.

To build on this setup, we also know that each person must have exactly one pair of the same type of flower (because each has four spots and three types of flowers). T and Z are the only two arrangements missing their pair, so the double lily discussed in Rule 6 will be assigned to one of them.

As for this specific question, we can immediately eliminate any answer choice that does not have either T or Z. As stated above, Rule 6 says that exactly one person uses LL, and the only people who can accommodate a new pair are T and Z. So, if two people use lilies as the question specifies, one of the two must use two lilies while the other only uses one. This means that one of the two people using lilies has to be either T or Z. This eliminates (A), (B), and (E).

From here, I would recommend going through the remaining two options and checking which is possible by looking at our original setup. (D) can be eliminated because both T and Z use hyacinths, and the question specifies that only one person in the pair can use any hyacinths. Therefore, we are left with (C) as our answer.

Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any other questions!

Matt9 on November 4, 2020

why is answer E eliminated?
U: RHHL
W: GGLR

then T could still have the double LL?

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on November 4, 2020

Hi I am not an instructor but I know why you are confused. The rule states that "exactly 1 person uses 2 lilies." Your scenario won't work because U and W both did not use 2 lilies. Since the question and answer choice E restrict the use of lilies in only the two variables U and W, you cannot get a third variable T to have double LL because that violates the restriction that only U and W use lilies at all.
I hope I explained it correctly. Please feel free to correct me. Thank you