Seven boxes, G, H, I, J, P, Q and R, are placed one above another, but not…

In stack/box-arrangement puzzles, absolute positions are pinned by counting clues (‘X boxes are placed below/above a box’ fixes its exact slot), ‘between’ clues fix the spacing between two boxes, and ‘only P is placed above/below Q’ clues identify the extreme (topmost or bottommost-adjacent) boxes. Combining these positional clues lets you fully order the stack before answering a positional query.

1. The clue ‘only three boxes are placed below I’ fixes I at the fourth position from the bottom — three slots below it and three above it, in a stack of seven.

2. The clue ‘only two boxes are placed between I and R’ means R sits exactly three slots away from I (with two boxes between them), so R is at position 1 or position 7.

3. The clue ‘only J is placed above H’ makes H the second box from the top and J the topmost box, so J occupies position 7 and H occupies position 6.

4. Since J already occupies position 7, R cannot also be there, so R is fixed at position 1, the bottom of the stack.

5. The remaining boxes G, P and Q must occupy the three leftover positions: 2, 3 and 5.

6. The clue ‘Q is placed below P and above G’ requires the position of G to be less than that of Q, which is less than that of P; the only way to place G, Q and P into positions 2, 3 and 5 in that ascending order is G = 2, Q = 3, P = 5.

7. The completed stack, from bottom to top, is: R, G, Q, I, P, H, J.

Checking every clue against this order confirms it: three boxes (R, G, Q) lie below I; exactly two boxes (G, Q) lie between I and R; only J lies above H; and G lies below Q, which lies below P. All five conditions hold.

The box at the second position from the bottom is therefore G.