Seating Arrangement puzzles are often asked in Banking exams, specially SBI PO and IBPS exams. Seating Arrangement puzzles are very scoring but they can be very lengthy and tricky to solve. The trick is to remember is that there is no a shortcut or trick for such questions.
To solve these questions correctly, within a few seconds,
- Developing a good grasp of concepts and solving methodology is important.
- A systematic approach and patience will help you to get through this topic.
Introduction to Puzzles for SBI PO Reasoning
Circular arrangement is a type of seating arrangement where people are seated around a circular or square or polygonal table. There are, primarily, three types of questions under circular arrangement.
I) Circular arrangement with people facing center of a table.
II) Circular arrangement with people facing outward of a table.
III) Circular arrangement with some people facing center of a table where as some people facing outward
Let us see how to solve the first type of circular arrangement problems i.e. circular arrangements with people facing the center of a table.
How to Solve Circular Arrangement – Type I
Here are a few tips to remember:
i) Imagine yourself as one of the persons given in the question.
ii) Count how many people are mentioned in the question. Then draw a circle with those many lines.
For e.g. If in the question, assume that it is given that there are eight friends A, B, C, D, E, F, and H sitting around a circle facing the center. Then you can draw a circle as shown below in fig 1.
iii) Imagine yourself at the position shown by the box.
iv) Now your left hand is the left side and right hand is the right side.
v) Now if in question it is given, A is third to the right of B, approach as follows.
a) Imagine yourself as B.
b) Place B at position shown in fig 2.
c) Now A is third to the right of B. The right of B is your right side. So place A three places from B towards its right. This can be seen in fig 3.
d) Now for left side of A we use clockwise rotation. And for right side of A we use anticlockwise rotation. So we can say that B is third to the left of A. Refer fig 4.
Now let us try to solve an example.
Circular Arrangement Example:
Eight people P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W, are seated around a circular table facing each other. R is second to the right of P and third to the left of Q. Q is second to the left of V. S and V are diagonally opposite to each other. U is a neighbor of S. T is third to the left of W.
Step I: Read the whole information once.
Step II: Count the number of people given and draw the circle accordingly. Now in the question 8 people are mentioned. So draw a circle with 8 lines facing inside.
Step III: Indicate Left and Right sides with arrows with respect to bottom-most position.
Step IV: Try to get direct information. Imagine yourself as one of them and star plotting them with respect to you.
Now in question it is given that,
1) R is second to right of P and third to left of Q. So imagine yourself as P and place yourself in the lowermost position as shown before.
2) R is second to the right of P. So place R, second towards your right hand side.
3) Now it is also given that R is third to left of Q. i.e. Q is third to right of R. So place Q accordingly.
4) Q is second to left of V. i.e. V is second to right of Q. So now place V second place from Q in anticlockwise direction.
5) S and V are diagonally opposite to each other. So that means S and V are exactly facing each other i.e. are diametrically opposite.
6) U is a neighbor of S. Now on one side of S, we already have R. So U must take the only available place next to S.
7) Finally T is third to left of W. We have only two positions left. This condition is only possible when W is placed between P and R.
So the final arrangement will be as shown below.
