If the strawberry layer is not immediately above the orange layer, then which one of the following could be true?
Anna20on July 20, 2020
Diagram Set Up
What is the fastest way of approaching this problem? I tried to think of diagrams / set ups where OS are not together - but have been sitting here a while. First I came up with LMROVS, which didn't help. Then I tried again, and put together LMORVS, which led me to B. I imagine there is a better way to approach this given the time constraints? Grateful for any suggestions. Thanks!
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Thanks for the question! So we’re asked here to see what could be true of S isn’t immediately above O. Well, let’s take this and see where it gets us. Remember that L, M, and O all are in lower layers than S, so S can only ever be in layers 4, 5, and 6. But now it can’t be in layer 4, since that would put it next to O. So in this example, S can only be in layers 5 and 6. But also notice that S can never be next to R. If we put S in layer 5, LMO are forced into slots 1, 2, and 3 (since O and S can’t be next to each other in this hypothetical). But then R has to be next to S, since only slots 4 and 6 are left. So actually, the only place S can go is in layer 6. This automatically eliminates (E), since S is there, not R. From the beginning, we can eliminate (C), since we know that L is immediately below M.
That leaves us two places to put LM. We can put them in layers 1 and 2, or layers 2 and 3. Note that this means R can never be in layer 2, so we can eliminate (D). If we put them in layers 2 and 3, then O has to be in layer 4, R has to be in layer 1, and V has to be in layer 5, which gets us
RLMOVS
Now let’s say we put LM in layers 1 and 2. Well, we could put O in slots 3 or 4. R goes in the other slot, and V has to go in slot 5 to separate R/O from S. So we have two possibilities:
LMORVS LMROVS
And now we see that (B) could happen.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
