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Difficulty: MediumSeating Arrangement

Five committee members—Finn, Gina, Harry, Isla, and Jack—are seated in a single row of five adjacent chairs facing an auditorium stage.

1. Gina sits exactly in the middle chair.
2. Isla sits immediately to the right of Harry.
3. Finn sits somewhere to the left of Gina.
4. Jack does not sit adjacent to Gina.

Based on these conditions, arrange the committee members in the correct seating sequence from the leftmost chair to the rightmost chair.

  1. 1Jack
  2. 2Finn
  3. 3Gina
  4. 4Harry
  5. 5Isla

Answer

The correct sequence from left to right is: Jack, Finn, Gina, Harry, Isla.
By placing Gina in the middle, and determining that Harry and Isla must take the rightmost adjacent seats to leave room for Finn on the left, the remaining seats are filled by placing Jack away from Gina. This yields the single valid sequence of Jack, Finn, Gina, Harry, Isla.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Place Gina in the arrangement.
Gina occupies Seat 3.
The first condition explicitly states that Gina sits exactly in the middle chair of the five available seats.
2
Determine the available positions for Harry and Isla.
Harry occupies Seat 4 and Isla occupies Seat 5.
Isla sits immediately to the right of Harry, meaning they require two adjacent seats. The available pairs are Seats 1 & 2 or Seats 4 & 5. Because Finn must sit somewhere to the left of Gina (who is in Seat 3), Finn must occupy either Seat 1 or Seat 2. This leaves only Seats 4 & 5 for Harry and Isla.
3
Place Jack and Finn in the remaining seats.
Jack occupies Seat 1 and Finn occupies Seat 2.
Jack and Finn must take the remaining Seats 1 and 2. The fourth condition states that Jack does not sit adjacent to Gina, which means Jack cannot be in Seat 2. Therefore, Jack must be in Seat 1, leaving Finn to sit in Seat 2.

Key Concept

Deductive reasoning using relative positional constraints and elimination in a linear arrangement.
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Topics

Seating Arrangement

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