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Christmas Returns (Posted on 2003-01-26) Difficulty: 3 of 5

Last Saturday morning, Mrs. Holly returned the Christmas gifts for her children that hadn't worked out to the mall stores where she bought them. As it turned out, there was one return for each of the five children, including Ben, with each being returned for a different reason to a different mall retailer, one to Eddie Bauer. Given the details of her trip below, can you determine the order 1st-5th in which Mrs. Holly made the returns: the store visited, the child whose gift was returned, the item returned, and the reason for the return?

Mrs. Holly made these five returns (not necessarily in order): Zach's gift, the jeans, the article bought at Banana Republic, the item of apparel that the recipient didn't like, and the one to the 5th store in the order. Erica's gift, which wasn't the one returned because it was too small, wasn't the one purchased at American Eagle Outfitters.

Immediately after returning the hat to one mall store, Mrs. Holly returned Mindy's gift to another retailer. The item returned to Abercrombie and Fitch wasn't the one that was too large.

The article Mrs. Holly took back to Banana Republic, which wasn't Erica's, wasn't the one that was the wrong color.

Immediately after returning Tara's gift, Mrs. Holly returned the item that was too small; immediately after returning the too small article, Mrs. Holly returned the sweatshirt.

The shorts weren't the too large item. Mindy's gift wasn't the one returned because it was the wrong style. The item of apparel returned to the Gap, which wasn't Mindy's, wasn't the sweatshirt. Mrs. Holly didn't return the jacket to American Eagle. The jeans weren't Tara's.

In consecutive order first-to-last, Mrs. Holly made these three returns: the one to the Gap, Erica's gift, and the article that was the wrong color.

See The Solution Submitted by sweet-paradox    
Rating: 3.6667 (6 votes)

Comments: ( Back to comment list | You must be logged in to post comments.)
Some Thoughts re: Nobody? | Comment 2 of 6 |
(In reply to Nobody? by levik)

I made a start on this and jotted down all the information and spent about half an hour after a work playing around with it. Half of the info I managed to piece together into what looked like a sensible progression into solving the problem, however the rest just wouldn't fit. It looks like it's going to be the kind of problem where logic itself doesn't present the answer. You'll have to trial-and-error a bunch of times and see which way doesn't contradict a certain statement. Maybe I'm just missing something. I'm sure all the information must be there, but I couldn't immediately spot a natural set of links which obviously would present me with the answer...
  Posted by Nick Reed on 2003-01-27 11:09:17

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