Scribd
Upload
409 views

Answer: 6 Different Orders. Solution: (Using Polya's Strategy)

The document discusses two logic puzzles involving determining the positions of baseball team game outcomes and class officer positions based on given clues. For the baseball puzzle, the document lists out the possible orders of two wins and two losses in four games and determines there are six possible orders. For the class officer puzzle, the document analyzes the clues and uses logical deductions to determine that Peter is president, Mary is vice president, John is secretary, and James is treasurer.

Uploaded by

paolo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
409 views

Answer: 6 Different Orders. Solution: (Using Polya's Strategy)

The document discusses two logic puzzles involving determining the positions of baseball team game outcomes and class officer positions based on given clues. For the baseball puzzle, the document lists out the possible orders of two wins and two losses in four games and determines there are six possible orders. For the class officer puzzle, the document analyzes the clues and uses logical deductions to determine that Peter is president, Mary is vice president, John is secretary, and James is treasurer.

Uploaded by

paolo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Bea Eleanor P.

Orias MMW 1st Year, BS Psychology

1. A baseball team won two out their last four games. In how many different orders could they
have two wins and two losses in four games?

Answer: 6 different orders.

Solution: (Using Polya’s Strategy)

1. Understand the problem:


What is asked in the problem are the number of different orders that the baseball team
could have in terms of having two wins and two loses. The given are: 4 total games, 2 wins,
and 2 loses.

2. Devise a plan:
In order to figure out how many different orders there are, we could manually list down
the possible orders, especially since 4 elements are only considered.

For the variables, x will be the number of wins, while y will be the number of loses

3. Carry out the plan:


Possible Orders:
1. x,x,y,y
2. x,y,x,y
3. y,y,x,x
4. y,x,y,x
5. x,y,y,x
6. y,x,x,y

From the list above, we could deduce that there are 6 different orders that the baseball
team could have in terms of having 2 wins and 2 losses.

4. Review the solution:


To check our solution, the number of possible orders plotted out were double checked,
so a so prevent repetitions and to avoid overlooking another possible order.
Bea Eleanor P. Orias MMW 1st Year, BS Psychology

1. James, John, Peter, and Mary were recently elected as the new class officers (president, vice
president, secretary, treasurer) of the sophomore class at Summit College. From the following
clues, determine which position each holds.

a) Mary is younger than the president but older than treasurer.

b) James and the secretary are both the same age, and they are the youngest members of the

group.

c) Peter and the secretary are next-door neighbors.

President Vice President Secretary Treasurer


James X2 X2 X2 ✓
John X3 X2 ✓ X2
Peter ✓ X2 X3 X2
Mary X1 ✓ X2 X1

First part of arguments:

From the first clue, Mary is not the president and the treasurer, and she is not the youngest of the
group;

Therefore, from B), we know that Mary is not the secretary.

In conclusion, Mary is the VP.

Second part of arguments:

From the first clue, we know that Mary is the VP, not the secretary.

Based on letter C, Peter cannot be the secretary.

Based on letter B, James is not the secretary.

Peter is also not the secretary based on letter C

James cannot also be the secretary based on B

Therefore, John is the secretary.

Third part of arguments:

Based on letter B, John is not the president but the secretary.

Based on letter A, Mary is not the president but the vice president

Based on letter A, James is not the president, but the treasurer

Thus, Peter is the president.


Bea Eleanor P. Orias MMW 1st Year, BS Psychology

Final Answer:

Peter- president

Mary- vice president

John- secretary

James- treasurer

You might also like