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Seating arrangement

Who sits where? From clues like “Asha sits at one end” and “Bilal is immediately left of Chen”, place everyone in a row or round a table.

  • Logic
  • Untimed
  • 7 levels

How it plays

People sit in a row of numbered seats or round a table. The clues say who sits next to whom, who is left of whom, who is at an end. Work out the arrangement and answer the question.

Start from the firmest clue — someone at an end, a seat given outright, someone between two others — and build outwards. At a round table everyone faces the middle, so your left is the same way round for everyone.

Levels add people, then subtler clues (not next to, somewhere left of, between), then gaps and people sitting opposite. Every puzzle has exactly one arrangement that fits, checked by trying them all, and no clue you could do without.

Keys

Space starts and skips ahead · 1–9 pick · Enter submits · Esc stops. On a phone, tap.

What it trains

This practises building an arrangement from relative positions, the seating puzzles of aptitude tests. It trains these puzzles; it claims nothing wider.

Learn

How to get better at seating arrangement: the method, the techniques, what each new level asks of you, and the traps the wrong answers are made of.

Your approach to each question

  1. Read the question first, so you know whether you need the whole arrangement or just one neighbour.
  2. Draw the seats: a row of numbered dashes, or a circle with one person fixed at the top. At a table, turning everyone round changes nothing, so put anyone there.
  3. Read every clue before placing anyone — they come in no particular order. Start with the firmest: a seat given outright, someone at an end, someone between two others.
  4. Join the “immediately” clues into blocks that move together, then try the few places each block can go and strike out the ones a “not” clue forbids.
  5. Once only one arrangement survives, read the answer off your drawing, not off your memory of the clues.

Techniques and tricks

  • Left at a table is clockwise

    Everyone faces the middle. Seen from above, each person’s left is the next seat clockwise, and their right is the next seat anticlockwise. Draw it once that way and keep to it.

  • Turn a clue round

    “Chen sits immediately to Asha’s right” is the same fact as “Asha sits immediately to Chen’s left”. Rewrite clues so they all hang off people you have already placed.

  • Build blocks

    Glue “immediately left of” and “between” clues into one block of names. A block of k people in a row of n has only n − k + 1 places to go.

    e.g. “Asha sits between Chen and Farid” is a block of three, Chen–Asha–Farid or Farid–Asha–Chen. In a row of 5 it starts at seat 1, 2 or 3.

  • Count a gap as seats

    “Exactly k people sit between A and B” means their seats differ by k + 1. List the pairs of seats that fit, then let another clue choose.

    e.g. Row of 6, exactly 2 between Dara and Hugo: seats 1 and 4, 2 and 5, or 3 and 6, either way round.

  • Opposite is half way round

    At a table of n, opposite is n ÷ 2 seats round in either direction. Second to the left is two seats clockwise.

    e.g. At a table of 6, count three seats round from Asha, either way, and you reach the person opposite her.

  • Use “not” clues last, to prune

    “Does not sit at either end” and “does not sit next to” never place anyone. Keep them for the end, to rule out the cases the positive clues leave open.

As the levels climb

  • Each level changes one thing, in turn: one more person, then a new tier of clue, then the table. People grow from 4 up to the “Most people” setting.
  • The first tier uses seats, ends, “immediately left of” and “next to”. The second adds “does not sit next to”, “somewhere to the left of” and “between”. The third adds gaps, “opposite” and “second to the left”.
  • With “Seats” on “A row, then a round table”, the row comes first and the table takes over early on. At the table there are no seat numbers or ends, so every clue is relative — fix one person and build round them.
  • More people means more clues, and more time when the clock is on: 30 seconds plus 10 for each clue. On the larger tables, block-building does most of the work; case-splitting comes last.

Traps to avoid

  • The other neighbour: asked who is on someone’s left, the person on their right is offered beside the answer. Check which way clockwise runs on your drawing before you choose.
  • Counting from the wrong end: asked for a seat number, the mirror seat — the same place counted from the right — is offered. Seats run 1 to n from left to right.
  • One seat out: the seat next to the answer, or the person next to the answer, is offered too. These come from fitting a block one place too far; recheck the end of the block.
  • “Somewhere to the left” is not “immediately left”. It only says which side, so it can never glue two people into a block.
  • A gap off by one: “exactly 1 person between” means two seats apart, not one. Add one to the gap to get the difference in seat numbers.

How to practise

  • Set “Seats” to “Only a row” until the block-building is quick, then “Only a round table” to drill clockwise left and right.
  • Lower “Most people” to 5 while the third tier of clues is new, then raise it to 8.
  • Raise “Options shown” to 8, so every neighbour and mirror seat sits among the options and only the full arrangement picks the answer.

Levels

It is untimed unless you turn the clock on. There are 7 levels with the default settings, and the counter stops at the real top. Your level is judged on your last ten answers, every ten: 90% moves you up, below 80% moves you down, which holds most people near four in five right.

All of it is in the settings beside Start — how many answers a judgement looks at and how often it recalibrates, the thresholds, the time, which questions, how many options, and whether you see each verdict at once or review them together at the judgement. You can also jump to any level.

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