Psychologists observing a shopping mall parking lot found that, on average, drivers spent 39 seconds leaving a parkin...

Skylar on April 16, 2020

Happy to help!

Question 17 reads "If Owens joined the firm in 1965 and MacNeil joined it in 1967, one can determine the years in which exactly how many of the other partners joined the firm?"

This question is essentially asking us: If we place O in the fifth spot and M in the 7th spot, how many other variables can we determine the placements of?

So we start out with:
__ __ __ __ O __ M __
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

From our setup, we know that only O, I, or M can be placed in the 8th spot. In this scenario, O and M are already placed in other spots, so we can determine that I must be placed 8th.
__ __ __ __ O __ M I
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

From our setup, we also know that H, K, N, and J must all precede G. This means that G must go in the 6th spot in our scenario in order to leave four spots open to its left.
__ __ __ __ O G M I
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

There are different possibilities for how the four remaining variables can be arranged in spots 1-4. So, there are no more variables we can definitively place.

When we placed O in the fifth spot and M in the 7th spot, we could determine the placements of two other variables (I and G), so (B) "2" is our correct answer.

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