Directions : Study the following information carefully to answer the given…
2022
Directions : Study the following information carefully to answer the given questions:
Nine persons - A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H and I live on different floors of nine storey building. Ground floor is numbered as 1st floor and just above the ground floor is numbered as 2nd floor and so on till the topmost floor is numbered as 9th floor. They speak different languages i.e., Marathi, Hindi, Gujrati, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannad, Punjabi and Bengali. All the data is not necessarily in the same order.
D speaks Telugu. Three persons live between A and the one who speaks Malayalam. The number of persons live above A is same as the number of persons live below H.A does not speak Kannad. Three persons live between H and the one who speaks Bengali. The number of persons live above G is same as the number of persons live below the one who speaks Bengali. Two persons live between E and the one who speaks Kannad. E does not speak Bengali. The one who speaks Hindi lives just above the one who speaks Gujrati. Neither A nor E speaks Hindi. C lives just below the one who speaks Marathi but lives above the 4th floor. The number of persons live above I is same as the number of persons live below the one who speaks Tamil. F lives above I’s floor. The one who speaks Punjabi doesn’t live on the bottommost floor.
Who among the following speaks Punjabi?
- A.
A
- B.
E
- C.
B
- D.
H
- E.
None of these
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept
In a nine-floor arrangement the ground floor is floor 1 and the top is floor 9, so for a person on floor n the number of people above is (9 - n) and the number below is (n - 1). "Three persons live between X and Y" means X and Y are exactly four floors apart, and "two persons live between" means a gap of three floors. The strategy is to convert every equal-count clue into an algebraic relation that pins absolute floors, then test the small number of remaining placements until exactly one survives.
Step-by-step deduction
Translate the equal-count clues into floor relations. "Persons above A = persons below H" gives 9 - floor(A) = floor(H) - 1, so floor(H) = 10 - floor(A): A and H are mirror floors about the middle. Likewise the Bengali speaker's floor = 10 - floor(G), and the Tamil speaker's floor = 10 - floor(I). Since F lives above I, I is restricted to the lower half.
Note the adjacency anchors next: the Hindi speaker sits immediately above the Gujarati speaker, and C sits immediately below the Marathi speaker with C above floor 4. These two stacked pairs occupy consecutive floors near the top, which is what later removes most of the freedom.
Now test the gap clues against those relations. "Three persons between H and the Bengali speaker" (a four-floor gap) must hold together with floor(H) = 10 - floor(A) and the Bengali-floor relation; only the candidate pair that respects all three survives, fixing H and the Bengali speaker.
Place C: it must be floor 5 or higher, and it cannot collide with the consecutive floors taken by the Hindi/Gujarati and Marathi/C adjacency pairs. The only value consistent with every clue puts C on floor 6, so the Marathi speaker is on floor 7.
Finally apply "two persons between E and the Kannada speaker" (three apart), "three persons between A and the Malayalam speaker" (four apart), D = Telugu, and the rule that neither A nor E speaks Hindi. With the floors above already constrained, each of these admits a single consistent placement.
Exactly one arrangement satisfies all fourteen conditions; it is shown below.
Floor | Person | Language |
|---|---|---|
9 (top) | F | Hindi |
8 | A | Gujarati |
7 | I | Marathi |
6 | C | Bengali |
5 | E | Punjabi |
4 | G | Malayalam |
3 | B | Tamil |
2 | H | Kannada |
1 (ground) | D | Telugu |
Result and cross-check
The unique arrangement places E on floor 5 speaking Punjabi, so the person who speaks Punjabi is E. Cross-check the most error-prone conditions against the grid: Punjabi sits on floor 5, not the bottommost floor; Hindi (floor 9) is just above Gujarati (floor 8); the Marathi speaker (floor 7) is just above C (floor 6); the persons above I equal the persons below the Tamil speaker; and D on the ground floor speaks Telugu. Every condition holds, confirming this is the only valid arrangement.