Six around a circular table — Aptitude Question
Six around a circular table: Six people — P, Q, R, S, T and U — sit around a circular table facing the centre. Answer and worked solution on CodeKairo.
- Topic: Seating & Puzzles
- Section: Logical Reasoning
- Difficulty: Hard
- Time target: 120 seconds
Question
Six people — P, Q, R, S, T and U — sit around a circular table facing the centre. P sits opposite S, Q is immediately to the left of P, R sits opposite Q, and T is immediately to the right of S. Who sits opposite T?
Options
- R
- U
- P
- Q
Show the answer and the worked solution
Correct answer: B. U
Worked solution
- Number the seats 1–6 clockwise and put P at 1. Opposite is three seats away, so S is at 4.
- Facing the centre, the seat to someone's left is the next one clockwise, so Q is at 2; opposite Q is R at 5.
- The seat to S's right is the next one anticlockwise from seat 4, so T is at 3, leaving U at 6.
- Opposite T (seat 3) is seat 6, which is U.
Answer: U.
The idea
In a circle of n seats, opposite means n/2 seats away. Fix one person, then place the rest. The one thing to get right is orientation: facing the centre, left is clockwise and right is anticlockwise — both flip when the group faces outwards.
Shortcut. Six seats make three opposite pairs; P–S and Q–R are two of them, so T and U must be the third — no need to fix left and right.
Common trap. "P" — T sits right beside S and S is opposite P, so a hurried reader carries 'opposite P' over to T; T's opposite is the one person left unpaired, U.