Math Is Fun Forum

mz_muaz

Member

Registered: 2007-09-02

Posts: 1

iS THiS THE MOST CONFUSiNG QUESTiON OR WHAT? PLEASE HELP iF YOU CAN!

George, Sam, Andrew and Brandan each have four dates to four different Parish Centre Dances with four different girls, named Cher, Connie, Melissa and Kendra. On the second date, George dated Connie and Brandan dated Kendra. On the third date, Andrew wnet out with Melissa adn Sam with Connie. Melissa went out with George and Cher went out with Sam on the fourth date. What couples went out together on the first date if no pairs went out more than once???

If you can, please help me with this question and please explain at the same time!!!!
THANKS HEAPZ!!!:D

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♥=[[MATHZ iiZ SO CHALLENGiiNG... DATZ DA GOOD THiiNG!!]]=♥

mathsyperson

Moderator

Registered: 2005-06-22

Posts: 4,900

Re: iS THiS THE MOST CONFUSiNG QUESTiON OR WHAT? PLEASE HELP iF YOU CAN!

(For future reference, this type of question should go in the 'Help Me!' board.)

The tricky bit about this is that you can't work out the pairs for the first dates straight away, you need to work out what you're not told for the other days first.

Let's start with the second date. We're told that George goes with Connie and that Brandan goes with Kendra, so that leaves two possible matchups for the others. Either Sam goes with Cher and Andrew goes with Melissa, or vice versa. However, Sam goes with Cher on the 4th date so it has to be the other way around.

We now know that on the 2nd date, the pairs were:
(George, Connie) , (Brandan, Kendra) , (Sam, Melissa) , (Andrew, Cher).

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On to the 3rd date. This time Andrew is with Melissa and Sam is with Connie. Brandan went with Kendra already, so this time he has to go with Cher, which leaves Kendra with George.

The 3rd dates are:
(George, Kendra) , (Brandan, Cher) , (Sam, Connie) , (Andrew, Melissa).

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That might be enough to work out the first dates now, but we might as well finish off first.
At the 4th date now, and those fickle lovebirds have all switched around again.

George is with Melissa and Sam is with Cher. Kendra still isn't talking to Brandan after their disastrous 2nd date and so she's going with Andrew, which leaves Brandan with Connie. (That's alright though, because she's actually the best-looking of the four.)

4th dates:
(George, Melissa) , (Brandan, Connie) , (Sam, Cher) , (Andrew, Kendra).

We now know everything about the 2nd, 3rd and 4th dates, which means that there's only one way that the people can be paired for the 1st date without matching people up twice. This arrangement is:

(George, Cher) , (Brandan, Melissa) , (Sam, Kendra) , (Andrew, Connie).

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Why did the vector cross the road?
It wanted to be normal.