The three oil-producing countries Qatar, Romania, and Saudi Arabia were the finalists in long jump. Walking around, I heard three comments from three different persons, one from each country:

"Saudi Arabia got the Gold."
"Qatar ended in a higher place than Saudi Arabia".
"Romania was the worst."

A judge commented that whenever a person said anything mentioning his own country, he was right in his beliefs, but if he only spoke about other countries, he was wrong. I didn't know which person was from which country, but I could recognize the Romanian because of his occidental clothes. With help of the judge's comment, I could reason out the final standings. What were they?

As one could reason the final standings with the recognition of the Romanian, we know the solution must be unique by his statement.

For the Romanian as the first speaker, with the order of speakers as either Romanian-Qatari-Saudi or Romanian-Saudi-Qatari, there are two possible standings:
1. Qatar, 2. Romania, 3. Saudi Arabia
1. Romania, 2. Qatar, 3. Saudi Arabia

For the Romanian as the second speaker, with the order of speakers as either Qatari-Romanian-Saudi or Saudi-Romanian-Qatari, there again, are two possibilities:
1. Romania, 2. Saudi Arabia, 3. Qatar
1. Saudi Arabia, 2. Romania, 3. Qatar

For the Romanian as the third speaker, the order of speakers Saudi-Qatari-Romanian would be impossible according to the statments they and the judge made, and we only have one possible arrangement for the speakers as Qatari-Saudi-Romanian, therefore, we can deduce that this is both the arrangement of the speakers and their respective placings:
1. Qatar, 2. Saudi Arabia, 3. Romania

Posted by Dej Mar on 2008-06-18 05:51:42