Assignment questions are an integral part of the Analytical Reasoning section in various exams. Usually, you will find a set of three to four questions based on the data provided in the questions.
The first step in solving such kind of sets is logically arranging the given directions in some sort of formation, generally a table or a diagram. The most important thing to be done is keeping in mind the negative information given in the set because ultimately you would arrive at an answer by keeping a track of directions of what can or cannot be done.
Let us understand this better with the help of the following example.
Illustration: A landlord owns a two-storey apartment complex. The complex has four adjacent ground floor apartments, numbered 111, 112, 113, 114, respectively, and four upstairs apartments numbered 211, 212, 213, 214 such that 211 is directly above 111, 212 is directly above 112, and so on. The landlord keeps one apartment empty where he stays when he visits town, and rents out six others. Which one cannot be rented?
Nan lives in 114.
Question 1: If Kit rents 213, then which apartment must Liz rent?
Solution: Read the directions and find out that there are 8 apartments in total. So, you draw a table which represents the apartments by its numbers and along with this number, write the name of the person who lives there.
Using the data you can make the following table and answer the question.
211 | 212 | 213 | 214 |
INGA | HAL | KIT | Empty |
111 | 112 | 113 | 114 |
JOE | Under renovation | LIZ | NAN |
With the help of this table, you can easily answer that Liz stays in 113.
Question 2: If Hal rents 111 and Joe rents 113, then which of the following CANNOT happen?
Solution: Using the given information, we can conclude that if HAL rents 111 and JOE rents 113 then INGA is at 213 and NAN is in room no. 114.
From this information we can make this table:
211 | 212 | 213 | 214 |
INGA | |||
111 | 112 | 113 | 114 |
HAL | Under renovation | JOE | NAN |
In this case, three rooms and two persons i.e. KIT and LIZ are left. If Room 214 is left empty then both would stay in 211 and 212 and would be together in any case. Hence the arrangement is possible only if one of them stays in 214. Hence the room 214 cannot be empty. Thus, the answer is Option no. 3.