Puzzling Asked on July 30, 2021
I found this puzzle in my Logic and Reason book from 2000’s. The topic is ordering information. From the looks of it seems to be an adaptation from a reprinted version of Martin Gardner’s 70’s book of Puzzle Carnival.
The puzzle is as follows:
Marina, Sakura, and Hina were finalists at an Idol Athletics competition. They take part in the final, which has three trials: archery, rhythmic gymnastics and a 100-m sprint. In each test, the one who ends up first gets $a$ points, the second gets $b$ points and the third gets $c$ points. We know that $a$, $b$ and $c$ are positive integers such as $a>b>c$ there are no draws. In total Marina got 20 points, Sakura 10 points and Hina 9 points. We know that Marina ended up second place in the rhythmic gymnastics trial. Who ended up third in the archery trial and second place in 100-m sprint trial?
The choices given by my book are as follows:
I’m confused on how to arrange this information in a logical manner. My approach was to make a table. So far I have this table:
Sport | Marina | Sakura | Hina |
---|---|---|---|
Archery | x | y | z |
Rhythmic gymnastics | v | u | w |
100-m sprint | d | e | f |
Where do I go from here?
It doesn’t say that $a$, $b$, and $c$ must be contiguous, but in order to have them to add up for 20, Marina’s first-place score, she must have ended up either third or first for either Archery or 100-m sprint. The same for the other two finalists, Hina and Sakura. How can this information be arranged more simply?
I attempted to break down the numbers to get 20, 10 and 9 and these are:
20 = 1+19, 2+18, 3+17, 4+16, 5+15, 6+14, 7+13, 8+12, 9+11, 10+10
But this didn’t help much. How can this puzzle be solved? Is there a trick or a method of simplification?
Should any sort of equation be used? Please include a diagram or sketch explaining how to approach this situation. Placing these people in order is very confusing for me, I don’t get what logic should be used.
The puzzle doesn’t specify the order the trials were conducted in. Would that affect the method of solution or does it not matter?
Because the total score for all three contestants over three events
The highest possible $b$ is
Since Marina placed second in rhythmic gymnastics,
With these values, there is only one way to get Sakura and Hina's scores of 10 and 9 respectively;
Answered by Braegh on July 30, 2021
@Braegh has the best answer, but for those who like brute force strategies, here is my python code to find the answer:
Output:
Answered by risky mysteries on July 30, 2021
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