LR – Single line Arrangement

Single line arrangement:

Single line arrangement can be divided as horizontal and vertical.

Horizontal is the one where direction is important for example people sitting in a straight line

Vertical arrangement is where order of occurrence is important for example events on different days
of the week.

Horizontal

Example 6 boys are sitting in a straight line.

Few key points:

1) How to start: Only if the position of anyone is known for certain can we put him in that
position. For example Ram is sitting on the 1st chair to the left. Shyam is sitting on the 2 nd
chair to the right
A and B are sitting together. Now we don’t know where A and B are seated so we cannot put
them in any particular seat

2) Direction: There are 2 directions: left and right. You can assume your left to be left and your
right to be right and the choice of directions does not matter at all. Only you have to be
consistent through out the questions. Normally you should take direction as per your
observation i.e. take your right as right and so on. Once you have finalised the directions you
can number the chairs with 1 from the left to make your work easy

3) To the right or to the left: To the right does not mean immediate right. It means in the
direction of right.
For example 6 boys are sitting in a straight line. Ram is sitting on the left most chair and Ravi
is sitting to high right.

_Ram_ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

It doesn’t necessarily mean

_Ram_ _Ravi_ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

It means Ravi can occupy any of the 5 seats to the right of Ram

_Ram___ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

4) Sit together: If it is given that A and B sit together, it can be A and B or B and A
A B OR B A
Best way to denote it is : A/B B/A

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LR – Single line Arrangement

5) N seats to the right or left/ N places away : Say A is sitting 2 seats to the right of B. This
means that the 2nd chair from the right of B is occupied by A.
_B_ ___ _A_

Madan is sitting 3 places to the left of Chagan

_Madan_ ___ ___ _Chagan_

6) Rough work: In most LR questions and particularly in the arrangement questions it is a good
idea to divide the information as fair and rough, where fair information is the one which can
go straight in the matrix or the diagram drawn.

Example

I. A, P, R, X, S and Z are sitting in a row. S and Z are in the centre. A and P are at the
ends. R is sitting to the immediate left of A.
1) Who is to the immediate right of P ?
a) A
b) X
c) S
d) Z

2) Who is to the immediate left of R?

a) S
b) J
c) Either a or B
d) None of the above

S and Z are in the centre

___ ___ _S/J_ _J/S_ ___ ___

A and P are at the ends.

A/P_ ___ _S/J_ _J/S_ ___ _P/A

R is sitting to the immediate left of A.: Since R is to the left of A, therefore A cannot be in the
left most chair. So

_P_ ___ _S/J_ _J/S_ _R_ _A_

And only chair available for X now is the 2nd from left

_P_ _X_ _S/J_ _J/S_ _R_ _A_

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LR – Single line Arrangement

1) Option B
2) Hence C

II. A, B, C, D and E are sitting on a bench. A is sitting next to B, C is sitting next to D,

E is on the left end of the bench. C is on the second position from the right.
Which of the following statement is not necessarily true?
a) C is sitting between B and D
b) A is to the right of E
c) A and C are sitting together
d) B and D are not sitting together

The statement A is sitting next to B, C is sitting next to D , do not help us start as they do not give
us any indication of the positions of A, B, C or D.

So we take this as rough information:

_A/B_ _B/A_ AND _C/D_ _D/C_

The statements E is on the left end of the bench. C is on the second position from the right,
give us particular positions:

_E_ ___ ___ _C_ ___

Now when we look at rough information then we realise that A and B must sit together and
the only possible choice for them is the 2nd and 3rd seats from left. But we still don’t know
the order of A and B. And D can only sit in the right most chair.

_E_ _A/B_ _B/A_ _C_ _D_

Hence C

III. Kesab, Jiban, Swapan, Rohit, Dev and Asit are seated in a row each adjacent to other.
Jiban and Asit are seated at the extreme ends. Dev is at the third position from
Jiban and Rohit is in fourth position from Asit and Kesab refuses to sit beside
Rohit.

1) Who can be the persons next to Swapan?

a) Rohit& Dev
b) Kesab&Asit
c) Kesab& Dev
d) Jiban&Kesab

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LR – Single line Arrangement

2) How many people are there between Rohit and Keshab ?

a) 1
b) 2
c) 3
d) 4

Jiban and Asit are seated at the extreme.

Jiban Asit
__________ ___________ __________ ___________ __________ ________

If Deb is at the third position from Jiban

Jiban Rohit Deb Asit
__________ ___________ __________ ___________ __________ ________

Rohit is in fourth position from Asit

Jiban Rohit Deb Asit

__________ ___________ __________ ___________ __________ ________

Kesab refuses to sit beside Rohit

Jiban Rohit Swapan Deb Keshab Asit

__________ ___________ __________ ___________ __________ ________

1. Ans. a)
2. Ans b)

Vertical

1) 7 exams are to be conducted on 7 days. The number of exams before Hindi and after Hindi
should be same. English and Math should occur on successive days. Hindi must take place
before Geography. Math must take place after History. Economics is the last exam. Science
is the supposed to be the toughest exam. How many exams will take place between
Geography and History?
a) 2
b) 3
c) 4
d) 3 or 4
e) None of the above

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LR – Single line Arrangement

In this question only piece of information which we can put directly is that Hindi will be the
4th exam and Economics is the last exam. So:
1) ____
2) ____
3) ____
4) Hindi
5) ____
6) ____
7) Economics

Rest all are rough information:

a) History

English/Math
Math /English

b) Hindi

Geography

As can be seen from the fair information, that there are 3 spaces above Hindi and 3
below it. However of 3 below, one is occupied by Economics. Also Geogrpahy will take
place after Hindi, so there will be only 1 vacant space below Hindi.
Now Math and English must take place on successive days. So either both of them
before Hindi or both after Hindi.
Since there is no vacancy after Hindi, therefore both will take place before Hindi. Also
Math must take place after History. So History is also before Hindi. Therefore Science is
after Hindi

1) History
2) Math/Eng
3) Eng/Math
4) Hindi
5) Science/Geography
6) Geography/Science
7) Economics

So History is on Day 1 and Geography on Day 5 or 6. So the gap can be 4 or 5. Hence E.

c) A man has to visit 5 offices. He has take a cheque from C to D so he must visit them in
succession i.e. C followed by D. He has an important meeting at A, so he doesn’t want it to
be his first or last meeting. He has to visit E before D and B. In how many ways can he visit?

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LR – Single line Arrangement

a) 1
b) 2
c) 3
d) 4
e) None of the above

This is an open ended question and the moment you read it you realise there will be many
possibilities. In questions like this the best thing to do is to identify that one piece of
information which reduce your number of choices.

In this case it is office C and D, because its pair.

i) If C and D are the 1st 2 office: Not possible because E must be visited before D
ii) If C and D are the 2nd and 3rd offices:
1) E
2) C
3) D
4) A
5) B

iii) If C and D are the 3rd and 4th offices: Neither A nor E can be the 5th office so it has to be B
1) E
2) A
3) C
4) D
5) B

iv) If C and D are the 4th and 5th offices: A cannot be the 1st office; E must be visited before B
so E has to be the 1st office
1) E
2) A/B
3) B/A
4) C
5) D

Number of cases: 0+1+1+2 =4 cases

Hence (d)

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