Before the last race, I heard the runners from Nepal, Oman and Pakistan make predictions about the final standings:

"I hope the Nepalese gets bronze, for then I'm certain to get silver."

"The Omani could get gold, but in that case I'd get silver."

"The gold medal will go to the Pakistani or to me."

I didn't know which runner said what, but as I learned later, they were all right. Furthermore, knowing which country won the race allowed me to calculate the final standings, which were... ?

from the statement, we know that..

Statement 1 only can given by --Omani 0r Pakistani
Statement 2 only can given by --Nepalese 0r Pakistani
Statement 3 only can given by --Omani 0r Nepalese

so .. In that case we have 2 conditions, there are

1st condition(A)-- Statement 1 by Omani
------------------- Statement 2 by Pakistani
------------------- Statement 3 by Nepalese

2nd condition(B)-- Statement 1 by Pakistani
------------------- Statement 2 by Nepalese
------------------- Statement 3 by Omani

Possibilties

N O P A B
G S B X X
G B S X X
S G B X O
S B G O X
B G S X X
B S G O X


N : NEPALESE O : OMANI P: PAKISTANI
G : GOLD S : SILVER B: BRONZE
O : TRUE X : FALSE

from the combinations above, we know that only in condition B, we have only one true combination
that is

OMANI WON GOLD
NEPALESE WON SILVER
PAKISTANI WON BRONZE

Condition B, can`t be the answer because we have 2 true posibilities.

Posted by kumar on 2004-07-23 22:56:36