Three reporters were discussing the hockey results. The TV reporter said "Either Brazil won gold, or Chile won silver, but not both." The radio reporter similarly started to say "Either Argentine won silver, or Chile won …", but a sudden noise cut him off.
The press reporter, who was lucky enough to hear the complete sentence, could reason out the final order of the three countries. What was it?
From the first statement the order can only have two possibilities. If Brazil got gold, Chile must have bronze. If Chile had silver, Brazil must have had bronze, thus, from the first statement we se that it must be either of these two orders:
Brazil - gold | Argentine - gold
Argentine - silver | Chile - silver
Chile - bronze | Brazil - bronze
The second statement started, stating that Argentine got silver, and would probably have ended with "...but not both." That is what I assume anyway. The first part is pointing at the first possible order. The seocond part would either be Chile got gold, silver or bronze. If he said Chile got gold, Brazil would have Bronze. This is not one of the possible solutions. If he said bronze, Argentine must have got gold (since they could not get silver or bronze) and brazil got silver - again not one of the possible solutions. If he said silver, we have a problem, because then both the possible solutions are included. However, the last part of the question states that the last reporter heard the last word and was able to deduce the correct order, therefore Argentine got silver and the first possible order is the correct one:
Brazil - gold
Argentine - silver
Chile - bronze
Possible Solution
