Question

Tim, Paco, Maria, and Jenny are standing in line for lunch. Jenny is standing between Paco and Maria, and Paco’s position in line is an odd number. Tim is not standing on either end of the line, and he is in front of Jenny. Use the process of elimination to make a table of each friend’s position in line.What is the order of people standing in line?

Answer 1

using the clues from the problem

"Jenny is standing between Paco and Maria"
so Jenny can be neither first nor last, and must be between P and M. Paco’s position in line is an odd number ---> P must be either 1 or 3. consider both possibilities, and consider where Jenny and Maria must be in both cases.

Tim is not standing on either end of the line, and he is in front of Jenny

Tim can't be on the end, so not in positions 1 or 4. Because he is in front of Jenny he can only be position 2 while Jenny must be position 3.

Place Maria in the remaining position