Puzzles put people in an order (floors of a building, days of the week) or ask you to choose a team under conditions. ASO 2012 asked a team-selection puzzle. Draw a table and fill it in using one clue at a time.
Floor and day puzzles
- Draw the floors from the ground floor up (or the days from Monday) as rows.
- "Immediately above" or "the day after" means the next row. "Somewhere above" means any higher row.
- Start with fixed clues, then the "immediately" pairs, and use the "somewhere" clues last to rule out options.
Team selection
Write the conditions as pairs: must go together or cannot go together. Then check each option against every condition. Usually one condition rules out three options.
ASO 2012: C cannot go with O; A and D go together; D cannot go with L; C and M go together; B and N go together; B cannot go with E. The only team of 5 with 3 officers is L, M, N, B, C. With D and 4 ministers it is A, C, D, E, M.