P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W are sitting round the circle and are facing the…

In a circular-arrangement puzzle, whenever a clue says someone is 'the neighbour of both A and B', that person is seated directly between A and B (A-person-B). Two people separated in this way by a third person are never neighbours of each other. When the clues leave more than one valid way to complete the seating, the answer option that is correct is the one whose neighbour-status is true in every valid completion, not one that only holds in some.

1. Fix T at a reference seat. Since P is second to the right of T, P takes the seat two places to T's right.

2. T's neighbours are R and V (one on each side of T), so one of R or V sits on the side of T nearer P, and the other sits on T's far side.

3. V must also be next to U. The side of T nearer P already borders P's seat, leaving no free seat there for U, so V must be the one on T's far side (where a free seat is available for U), and R must be the one on the side nearer P – making R adjacent to both T and P.

4. The remaining three people, Q, S and W, fill the three seats between P's side and U's seat. Since S is not the neighbour of P, S cannot take the seat right after P. Working through 'W is not between U and S' and 'Q is not between S and W' leaves exactly two valid completions for this block – one in which Q and W sit next to each other, and one in which W sits between P and S with Q away from W.

Checking every option against these completions: U and V are neighbours in both (forced directly by the clue that V is next to U); R and P are neighbours in both (R was placed adjacent to both T and P); but Q and W are neighbours in only one of the two valid completions, so that pair cannot be relied on either way. Only R and V are separated – by T sitting directly between them – in every arrangement consistent with the clues, so R and V is the pair that is guaranteed not to be neighbours.