How to solve Seating Arrangement Problems ?

Seating Arrangement or Seating Plan is just a diagram or a set of written instructions that determines where people should take their seats. This is one of the crucial and promising sections of banks and other competitive exams. But as we have already discussed in our earlier post, even a single mistake can ruin your entire answer in result ending up with losing 5 marks allotted to this area. So we have to be little cautious while doing seating arrangement problems.

Seating Arrangement Introduction :

Shortcuts to Seating Arrangement Problems

Seating Arrangement is not any new word which directly invented / introduced for competitive exams. Its just picked up from our daily life. We follow this strategy in formal dinners, weddings, theaters, trains etc to avoid chaos and confusion upon entrance. But in competitive exams we should arrange given people in a specific shape. Most widely asked shapes are Circular, Octagonal, Square, Rectangle and Two or Three parallel lines.

Generally as soon as seeing the question, people tend to draw the shape mentioned in the question. And latter put dots or lines according to the given details. Its not good practice I must say. Because it ruins your valuable time and often leads to extra confusion. So better use straight lines instead of circles and shapes. Drawing straight lines instead of circles also make it easier to find who is sitting opposite to whom. Lets have a look at below diagram for detailed understanding.

Ex : Assume that you have been asked to draw a circular seating arrangement of six people.

you can follow the above mentioned lines strategy for all shapes either it may be square, pentagon, hexagon etc.

Now try to remember some important points :

If A is sitting immediate left of B, that means B is on immediate right of A.
To avoid confusion of left and rights in circular and other shapes' seating arrangement problems, you should assume that all people are facing to center (unless and until they specify the direction).
Its always better idea to assume you are one among them so that it will be easier for you to get an idea of the arrangement.
If you are unable to get the idea from a line then better skip that line and go to next line. You can revisit to the skipped line after getting another clue.

now lets have a look at some problems on seating arrangement so that you will get the concept clear.

Note : In seating arrangement problems

1. Six persons A, B, C, D, E and F are sitting around a circular table. B is sitting to the immediate right of E. C is not sitting next to F. F is sitting opposite to B and D is sitting opposite to E. Who is sitting to the immediate left of D ?

Solution :

Its given that there are 6 persons sitting around the table. Six persons that means you should represent 6 points. That means 3 lines. Draw 3 lines as shown in the below figure. Later it is given that B is sitting to the immediate right of E. So we shall start with E. Just choose any of the end of the line and mark it as E. And B is sitting immediate right to E. So put B at the right side of E. Now the arrangement will be look like this,

Later its given that C is not sitting next to F. We don't have any idea about this statement at present. So skip to next statement, i.e., F is sitting opposite to B. We know where B is. So mark F to the opposite to B.

Its also given that D is sitting opposite to E. So mark D as opposite to E. Now the arrangement will look like,

So only A and C are available.... Now go to the previous statement which we have skipped. C is not sitting next to F. With this statement its clearly known that we cant place C besides F. So we can place A there. And now there is only one gap between D and B. We can place C there. So the final arrangement of seating will be appear like this.

Now lets have a look at another problem.

2. Eight persons P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W are sitting around a circular table. 'S' is to the immediate right of W. 'V' is not next to either R or T. 'W' is to the immediate right of T, who is sitting opposite to R. U and W are sitting opposite to each other. Followed by some questions...

Solution : Here there are 8 persons. That means 4 lines.

Given that S sat immediate right of W. So start with W. And place S immediate right to W.
'V' is not next to either R or T.. No clue about this statement. So skip it.
'W' is to the immediate right of T, who is sitting opposite to R.. We know where W is... Given that it is immediate right of T. That means T should be immediate left of W. Now from the above statement we came to know that T is sitting opposite to R. So place R opposite to T. Now the arrangement will appear like this...

No check the skipped statement. 'V' is not next to either R or T. That means, we cant place V neither on both vacant sides of R nor at the single side of T. So the only vacant place remaining was opposite to S.

U and W are sitting opposite to each other. So just place U opposite to W. Now there are 2 vacancies and two people (P and Q) are pending. There is no specific clue to find out their exact places. So there are equal chances for them to place any of the side. Usually they leave blanks like this to make you confused. In these cases its better to write P/Q (P or Q) at both the sides. In-fact they wont ask questions about P/Q because they left them clueless. So finally the arrangement will appear like this.