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A supermarket has to place 12 items (coded A to L) in shelves numbered 1 to 16. Five of these items are types of biscuits, three are types of candies and the rest are types of savouries. Only one item can be kept in a shelf. Items are to be placed such that all items of same type are clustered together with no empty shelf between items of the same type and at least one empty shelf between two different types of items. At most two empty shelves can have consecutive numbers.
The following additional facts are known.
1. A and B are to be placed in consecutively numbered shelves in increasing order.
2. I and J are to be placed in consecutively numbered shelves both higher numbered than the shelves in which A and B are kept.
3. D, E and F are savouries and are to be placed in consecutively numbered shelves in increasing order after all the biscuits and candies.
4. K is to be placed in shelf number 16.
5. L and J are items of the same type, while H is an item of a different type.
6. C is a candy and is to be placed in a shelf preceded by two empty shelves.
7. L is to be placed in a shelf preceded by exactly one empty shelf.
Which of the following can represent the numbers of the empty shelves in a possible arrangement?
The total number of biscuits = 5, the total number of candies =3 and the total number of savouries = 12-(3+5)=4
Representing the candies as C, biscuits as B and savories as S. K is to be placed in shelf number 16. D, E and F are savouries and are to be placed in consecutively numbered shelves in increasing order after all the biscuits and candies. Since there is no empty shelf between the items of same type, D,E,F and K are savouries and placed at 13,14,15 and 16 respectively. This can be tabulated as follows:
The shelf 12 will be empty.
It is given that items are to be placed such that all items of same type are clustered together.
From 1, A and B are to be placed in consecutively numbered shelves in increasing order.
From 6, C is a candy and is to be placed in a shelf preceded by two empty shelves and from 7, L is to be placed in a shelf preceded by exactly one empty shelf.
Hence C and L are items of different types. Since C is a candy, L will be a biscuit.
From 5, L and J are items of the same type, while H is an item of a different type.
Since I and J are clustered together, I, J and L are biscuits and H is a candy.
So C,H are candies and I,J,L are biscuits. It is given that A, B are place consecutively. Hence A and B are items of same types. So A, B should be biscuits because if they are candies, there will be 4 candies.
Hence, I,J,L,A,B are biscuits and C,H and G are candies.
Now there are two empty shelves before C and exactly one empty shelf before L, then the different cases can be tabulated as follows:
Case 1:
Case 2:
From the table(case 2), only 1,2,6 and 12 are empty in the same arrangement. Hence, C is the answer.
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