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?

I've been over this a few times, and I swear there are four solutions that work.  Either that or I made a mistake, or something is worded wrong in the puzzle.

Solution (A): Assume comment #1 is by Saudi Arabia, therefore TRUE.  Assume comment #2 is by Romania, therefore FALSE.  Assume comment #3 is by Qatar, therefore FALSE.  Gold to Saudi Arabia, Silver to Romania, Bronze to Qatar. 

Solution (B): Assume comment #1 is by Romania, therefore FALSE.  Assume comment #2 is by Qatar, therefore TRUE. Assume comment #3 is by Saudi Arabia, therefore FALSE. Gold to Romania, Silver to Qatar, Bronze to Saudi Arabia. 

Solution (C): Assume comment #1 is by Qatar, therefore FALSE.  Assume comment #2 is by Romania, therefore FALSE.  Assume comment #3 is by Saudi Arabia, therefore FALSE.  Gold to Romania, Silver to Sauda Arabia, Bronze to Qatar.

Solution (D): Assume comment #1 is by Qatar, therefore FALSE.  Assume comment #2 is by Saudi Arabia, therefore TRUE.  Assume comment #3 is by Romania, therefore TRUE.  Gold to Qatar, Silver to Saudi Arabia, Bronze to Romania.

The only other available combinations of who said which comment are:

#1 by Saudi Arabia, #2 by Qatar, and #3 by Romania. This doesn't work, because if #1 is TRUE, #2 cannot be TRUE.

#1 by Romania, #2 by Saudi Arabia, #3 by Qatar.  This works, and gives you the same results as solution (B) above.

 

Posted by Lisa on 2004-04-21 11:15:35