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Games and Tournaments for CAT Exam Logical Reasoning – Part 1

Tuesday, June 16th, 2020

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In Logical Reasoning very often we encounter problems based on games and tournaments. The first thing that as a CAT taker you need to realize is that such tournament based format offers the examiner a multitude of options. So, there cannot be a set formula for solving such kind of questions. However, if you look at the CAT papers of past few years – a pattern seems to emerge. Let us discuss couple of them.

Type 1: The questions are typically in a set where the data will be either in the standard tabular format or a format which you would never find on Cricinfo or for that matter any other ESPN website. The ‘different for the sake of being different’ format essentially tests a CAT taker’s ability to infer data in newer formats.

 

An example of this would be:

Each diagram communicates the number of runs scored by the three top scores from India, where K, R, S, V, and Y represent Kaif, Rahul, Saurav, Virender, and Yuvraj respectively. The % in each diagram denotes the percentage of total score that was scored by the top three Indian scorers in that game.

I will not get into the detail of solving this particular set. Once you interpret the information, the questions are really simple. The catch in this question (this type of questions) is to interpret the given data.

Let us look at this information in a different way:

	Pakistan	South Africa	Australia
Runs by Kaif	28	51
Runs by Rahul		49	55
Runs by Saurav		75	50
Runs by Virender	130
Runs by Yuvraj	40		87
Runs by Top 3
Top 3 as a %age of total	90%	70%	80%
Total runs

 

As you can see, the triangular format is no different from providing the same information to the student in a table. It is just a little more intimidating in a pressure situation – and that intimidation is exactly what you should avoid. With some very simple addition and calculation you will be solve this problem set.

Bottom line: Even if it takes a couple of minutes, it is best to represent information in a format that you are comfortable with.

 Type 2: For some reason, Tennis appears to be a favorite among exam setters. Actually Tennis does offer some very interesting possibilities – such as seeds, an unconventional scoring and the knockout feature. Knockouts are inherent in the sport of Tennis and hence used frequently by exam setters.

Note: In a knockout tournament,

No. of matches = No. of players – 1

Let us look at few ideas related to questions on seeded players. Let’s say in a tournament there are ‘n’ players and they are seeded (ranked) from 1 to n. Typically this ‘n’ is a power of 2 like 32 or 64 or 128.

In the first round the highest seeded player plays the lowest seeded player, the second highest seeded player plays the second lowest seeded player and so on. To put it into perspective:

Round 1 – Match 1 – Seed 1 Vs Seed n

Round 1 – Match 2 – Seed 2 Vs Seed (n-1)

Round 1 – Match 3 – Seed 3 Vs Seed (n-2)

.

.

Round 1 – Match n/2 – Seed n/2 Vs Seed n/2 + 1

In the second round, winner of Match 1 plays winner of Match n/2; winner of Match 2 plays winner of Match n/2 – 1 and so on.

In this kind of questions, an ‘upset’ comes into the picture which essentially means that a lower seeded plays beat a higher seeded player.

The questions are typically of the format:

Ques: Who will play match 36 in Round 1?

Ans: It will be played between the 36^th highest seed and the 36^th lowest seed.

The 36^th lowest seed can be sometimes difficult to figure out but you can figure it out easily by calculating (n+1) – 36.

 

Note: The r^th match in Round 1 will be played between Seed ‘r’ and Seed ‘n+1-r’

Ques: If there are no upsets, then in Round 2 who will play the 5^th match?

Ans: One way of solving this question would be figuring out the winners of Round 1 and then figuring out the 5^th from the top and the bottom.

If there is no upset, then seed 5 will be there. The other player would be (n/2+1 – 5)

 

Note: If there are no upsets, then the r^th match in the p^th round will be played between –

Seed ‘r’ and Seed  

Ques: Who will meet Seed 37 in the Quarterfinals of a tournament in which 64 players are taking part? Other than Seed 37’s matches, there were no other upsets.

We first need to analyze which round would be the quarterfinal:

Round 1 (32 matches), Round 2 (16 matches), Round 3 (8 matches – pre-quarter), Round 4 (4 matches – quarterfinals).

In Round 1, Seed 37 must have defeated 64 + 1 – 37 = 28

In Round 2, Seed 37 played the match that Seed 28 would have played. Seed 28 would have played against Seed 32 + 1 – 28 = Seed 5

In Round 3(pre-quarters), Seed 37 played the match that Seed 5 would have played. Seed 5 would have played against Seed 16 + 1 – 5 = Seed 12 and won it.

In Round 4 (quarterfinals), Seed 37 would meet the player that Seed 5 would have met. Seed 5 would have met 8+1-5 = 4.

Hence, Seed 37 will meet Seed 4 in the quarterfinals.

As a matter of fact, even the above solution is not the most optimal one. Because once you realize that Seed 37 defeated Seed 5, he would keep meeting the opponents that Seed 5 would have met.

I think I have taken enough of your time with this lengthy post but this time would be well spent if such a question appears in CAT or some other management entrance exam.

CAT Exam 2018 Questions from Logical Reasoning

Logical Reasoning – Set 1: An ATM dispenses exactly Rs. 5000 per withdrawal using 100, 200 and 500 rupee notes.
Logical Reasoning – Set 2: 1600 satellites were sent up by a country for several purposes. The purposes are classified as broadcasting (B), communication (C), surveillance (S), and others (O). 
Logical Reasoning – Set 3: You are given an n×n square matrix to be filled with numerals so that no two adjacent cells have the same numeral.
Logical Reasoning – Set 4: Adriana, Bandita, Chitra, and Daisy are four female students, and Amit, Barun, Chetan, and Deb are four male students. Each of them studies in one of three institutes – X, Y, and Z.
Logical Reasoning – Set 5: Twenty four people are part of three committees which are to look at research, teaching, and administration respectively.
Logical Reasoning – Set 6: Fuel contamination levels at each of 20 petrol pumps P1, P2, …, P20 were recorded as either high, medium, or low.
Logical Reasoning – Set 7: Fun Sports (FS) provides training in three sports – Gilli-danda (G), Kho-Kho (K), and Ludo (L).?
Logical Reasoning – Set 8: According to a coding scheme the sentence Peacock is designated as the national bird of India is coded as 5688999 35 1135556678 56 458 13666689 1334 79 13366
Logical Reasoning – Set 9: The base exchange rate of a currency X with respect to a currency Y is the number of units of currency Y which is equivalent in value to one unit of currency X.
Logical Reasoning – Set 10: Seven candidates, Akil, Balaram, Chitra, Divya, Erina, Fatima, and Ganeshan, were invited to interview for a position.?
Logical Reasoning – Set 11: Each visitor to an amusement park needs to buy a ticket. Tickets can be Platinum, Gold, or Economy. Visitors are classified as Old, Middle-aged, or Young. ?

CAT Exam 2018 Questions from Data Interpretation

Data Interpretation – Set 1: A company administers a written test comprising of three sections of 20 marks each – Data Interpretation (DI), Written English (WE) and General Awareness (GA), for recruitment.
Data Interpretation – Set 2: The multi-layered pie-chart below shows the sales of LED television sets for a big retail electronics outlet during 2016 and 2017.
Data Interpretation – Set 3: There are only four brands of entry level smartphones called Azra, Bysi, Cxqi, and Dipq in a country.
Data Interpretation – Set 4: An agency entrusted to accredit colleges looks at four parameters: faculty quality (F), reputation (R), placement quality (P), and infrastructure (I).
Data Interpretation – Set 5:  Each of the 23 boxes in the picture below represents a product manufactured by one of the following three companies: Alfa, Bravo and Charlie.

CAT Exam 2017 Questions from Logical Reasoning

Logical Reasoning – Set 1: Eight friends: Ajit, Byomkesh, Gargi, Jayanta, Kikira, Manik, Prodosh and Tapesh are going to Delhi from Kolkata
Logical Reasoning – Set 2: In an 8 X 8 chessboard a queen placed anywhere can attack another piece if the piece is present in the same row
Logical Reasoning – Set 3: A tea taster was assigned to rate teas from six different locations – Munnar, Wayanad, Ooty, Darjeeling, Assam and Himachal.
Logical Reasoning – Set 4: Four cars need to travel from Akala (A) to Bakala (B). Two routes are available, one via Mamur (M) and the other via Nanur (N).
Logical Reasoning – Set 5: A new airlines company is planning to start operations in a country.
Logical Reasoning – Set 6: In a square layout of size 5m × 5m, 25 equal sized square platforms of different heights are built.
Logical Reasoning – Set 7: There are 21 employees working in a division, out of whom 10 are special-skilled employees (SE) and the remaining are regular skilled employees (RE).
Logical Reasoning – Set 8: Healthy Bites is a fast food joint serving three items: burgers, fries and ice cream.
Logical Reasoning – Set 9: A high security research lab requires the researchers to set a pass key sequence based on the scan of the five fingers of their left hands. When an employee first joins the lab, her fingers are scanned in an order of her choice, and then when she wants to re-enter the facility, she has to scan the five fingers in the same sequence.

CAT Exam 2017 Questions from Data Interpretation

Data Interpretation – Set 1: An old woman had the following assets: Rs. 70 lakh in bank deposits
Data Interpretation – Set 2: There were seven elective courses – El to E7 – running in a specific term in a college. Each of the 300 students enrolled had chosen just one elective from among these seven.
Data Interpretation – Set 3: Funky Pizzaria was required to supply pizzas to three different parties. The total number of pizzas it had to deliver was 800, 70% of which were to be delivered to Party 3 and the rest equally divided between Party 1 and Party 2.
Data Interpretation – Set 4: Simple Happiness index (SHI) of a country is computed on the basis of three parameters: social support (S), freedom to life choices (F) and corruption perception (C).
Data Interpretation – Set 5: Applicants for the doctoral programmes of Ambi Institute of Engineering (AIE) and Bambi Institute of Engineering (BIE) have to appear for a Common Entrance Test (CET).
Data Interpretation – Set 6: A study to look at the early teaming of rural kids was carried out in a number of villages spanning three states, chosen from the North East (NE), the West (W) and the South (S).
Data Interpretation – Set 7:At a management school, the oldest 10 dorms, numbered 1 to 10, need to be repaired urgently, The following diagram represents the estimated repair costs (in Rs. Crores) for the 10 dorms. For any dorm, the estimated repair cost (in Rs. Crores) is an integer.

Other posts related to Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning

Games and Tournaments for CAT Logical Reasoning – Part 1
How to solve logical reasoning problems based on team selection and group formation?
How to solve Logical Reasoning questions based on Ranking and Ordering
Logical Reasoning Basics – How to solve coin picking / matchstick related problems?
Basics of Data Interpretation – Approximation
Application of Quantitative Ability Concepts in Logical Reasoning Puzzles and Data Interpretation Sets
Cube Based Puzzles in Logical Reasoning for CAT Exam Preparation
How to prepare for LRDI
How to prepare for Logical Reasoning
How to Prepare for Data Interpretation
How to Solve Number Series Questions in Logical Reasoning
Tricks to Solve Blood Relations Problems in Logical Reasoning
Coded Inequality – Tips and Tricks to Solve Questions in Logical Reasoning
CAT Concepts – Introduction to Data Sufficiency
Basics of Data Interpretation – Approximation

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