Thanks for the question! So take a careful look at that last rule. We’re told that O’s aisle is higher than either of Kurt’s aisles, and lower than at least one of L’s. That means that O’s could be higher than one of L’s, as long as it’s lower than the other one. And now notice this question stem. We’re being asked for the maximum number of aisles that could separate L’s aisles. Well, that means that we’re to assume that L stocks two aisles, since this would be a nonsensical question if she just stock one aisle. So as long as O is lower than one of those aisles, we satisfy the last rule.
So now we want to place L’s aisles as far away from each other as possible. Can we put them in both end aisles? No, since EXACTLY one of L’s aisle is an end aisle. OK, well can we put them in 1 and 8, or 2 and 9? We can’t put them in 2 and 9, since we know K is in the 2nd aisle. So let’s see if we can put them in 1 and 8. We know that O can’t go in aisle 9, but otherwise, O can go anywhere since that would make it lower than the L in aisle 8. And then we can try out a couple of scenarios, knowing that MKM has to go in aisles 3-5 or aisles 4-6. And trying out a couple of things, we see that
L K M K J O L J
is a possible combination, and so J can go in aisle 6, so (A) is the correct answer.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
