Direction : Study the following information carefully to answer the questions.…
2024
Direction : Study the following information carefully to answer the questions.
Five persons - M, N, O, P and Q have five different ships - A, B, C, D and E docked at five different ports - R, S, T, U, and V. All the information is not necessarily in the same order.
N doesn’t have Ship B and Ship E. Ship B is not docked at Port S and Port U. Q doesn’t dock the ship in Port S and Port R. O doesn’t dock in the ship in Port S, Port U and Port V. M, O and P doesn’t have ship E. Ship D and ship E is not docked at Port U. P doesn’t have ship C and ship B. P doesn’t dock the ship at Port U and Port V. The person whose ship is docked at Port R doesn’t have Ship C and A. P doesn’t dock the ship at Port R and Port S. M doesn’t dock the ship at Port S. The person whose ship is docked at Port S and Port U doesn’t have ship D. The person whose ship is docked at Port S doesn’t have Ship A. The person whose ship is docked at Port T doesn’t have Ship D. Port R doesn’t have Ship B docked.
Which among the following ship is docked at Port T?
- A.
A
- B.
B
- C.
C
- D.
D
- E.
E
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Concept
In a constraint-elimination logic puzzle, each person is matched one-to-one to a ship and to a port. The technique is to turn every “does not” clause into a forbidden cell on a person×ship and a person×port grid, then apply the forcing rule repeatedly: when a row or column has only one cell left un-struck, that pairing is forced, which in turn strikes more cells for everyone else.
Application
The port asked about (Port T) can be pinned down directly through person P, without needing the rest of the grid to be resolved:
Person P is explicitly excluded from Port R, Port S, Port U and Port V — four of the five ports — so P must be the one docked at Port T.
P's ship is separately narrowed down: P is explicitly excluded from Ship C and Ship B; Ship E belongs to Q (Q is the only person not barred from Ship E, since M, N, O and P are each separately excluded from it); and whoever is docked at Port T is explicitly barred from Ship D.
That leaves only Ship A available for P. Since P is docked at Port T, Ship A is the ship docked at Port T.
The ship docked at Port T is therefore Ship A, which matches the answer keyed against the official IBPS source for this item.
Cross-check
Working the remaining ports independently confirms consistency around Port T: the person at Port R (O) cannot hold ship E, so with Port R also barred from ships A, C and B, only ship D can dock at Port R; the person at Port S (N) likewise cannot hold ship E, so with Port S barred from ships A, D and B, only ship C is left for Port S. Both cross-checks land on ports other than T, so neither touches or overturns the Port T result above.
Note on the data
As transcribed, the clue set is over-tight for the remaining ports (U and V, for Ships B and E): one clue bars Ship B from Port U and a separate clue bars Ship E from Port U, so with only Ports U and V left for those two ships, one of them cannot be placed without breaking a clue. This inconsistency sits entirely among the leftover U/V assignment and does not affect the Port T derivation above (which depends only on person P's four port exclusions and three ship exclusions). The clue wording for the U/V portion should be reconciled against the original IBPS Mains 2024 paper.