Q5

[AnnaC659]

Hi,

I was wondering what the most efficient way of finding the answer to this question would be.

I got this one correct through trial and error. Unlike the rest of the questions in this game, I couldn't really instinctively see which pair F couldn't belong in the group with.

Thank you in advance.

[ohthatpatrick]

Aaaack! I'm so annoyed --- I typed out a long explanation and then I accidentally closed that browser tab and lost it to the winds of time.

But -- I guess the moral to the story (of a long explanation) is that there ISN'T quite a simpler way to do this problem.

FIRST, you look over all your previous scenarios and check who F's classmates were. If those two show up in an answer, eliminate that answer.

I'm assuming you have all the rules linked together in some Ordering tree like this:

I - G - J - M - H - N
.......\
.........K - F
...........\
..............L

Since the question is about who would be classmates with F, we could ask ourselves about what class F could/must be in.

From our Tree, we see that F would never be in class 1, and thus it would never be with I or G (but no answers have them).

F could be in class 2 or class 3, with lots of different combinations.

What I would probably do for this problem is just
1. look at each answer and compare to the Tree
2. figure out whether the answer forces class 2 or class 3
3. think about whether there's a legal way to make everything else work

At any point, if I felt unsure of what I was visualizing, I would just start writing out possibilities.

(A) class 3 ... sure these guys could be the last three. They're all at the end of the Tree.
(B) class 2 ... I G K <> F J L <> we're good
(C) class 2 or class 3. We get I G J, and then KLF and MHN could be 2 or 3.
(D) class 2 .... I G K <> J M F <> we're good
(E) class 2, but how would that work .... ?
I G __ <> L M F

J and K both need to come before LMF. We're screwed, so (E) is the answer.

Hope this helps.