Seating Arrangement Questions are an important topic in the Reasoning Exam to be prepared for competitive exams be it for IBPS Clerk, PO, RRB, SO, SBI Clerk, or PO Exams. The number of questions and the complexity of questions varies from exam to exam every year.
Seating Arrangement Questions are simple to understand but they can be made complex using multiple information. Examples of Seating Arrangement Questions and Practice questions on Seating Arrangement Questions are also given in this article.
Nowadays, questions in exams are mixed with multiple concepts and it requires practice and deep understanding of basic concepts along with quickly identifying patterns.
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What is a Seating Arrangement?
Seating arrangement is the logical arrangement of persons sitting either in a row or in circular formation. This types of questions are very common in Banking exams.
Question based on seating arrangement requires two steps: 1) To solve the question by analysing and arranging things as per the information given. 2) Respond to the subsequent questions by arrangement that we solved for question.
Types of Seating Arrangement Questions
There are various types of seating arrangement Questions, out of which some commonly used are given below:
- Linear Arrangement.
- Circular Arrangement.
- Facing towards the center.
- Facing outside.
- Alternate facing.
- Random Facing.
- Arrangement for Group Photo.
- Complex Arrangement.
Steps to Solve Seating Arrangement Questions
Below are the steps to solve the seating arrangement questions:
- Read the question line by line and don’t read the full question in one go.
- Identify which type of seating arrangement is asked in the question. As per the above types.
- Decide the empty skeleton for filling the data from the question.
- Consider all scenarios and remove all the wrong options and left with the correct one.
- Consider all the possible scenarios, else conclusion will be wrong.
- Re-validate the answer, either by re-arranging. {Note: Keep ticking time in mind. Do only if you’re not sure of a solution in one attempt.}
Linear Arrangement
Linear Arrangement is a logical arrangement of people or things either in a horizontal or vertical manner. Two persons are sitting at each end of row or queue.
Examples of Linear Seating Arrangement Questions: Queue, Any Row of Class / Cinema Hall / Theater, or sitting inside bus or train.
Example 1: Raj, Ram, Ravi, Rakesh, and Rohan are five friends sitting in a restaurant. They are wearing formal shirts of five different colors — yellow, blue, green, white, and red. Also, they are eating five different snacks — burgers, sandwiches, ice cream, pastries, and pizza.
- The person wearing a red shirt is eating pastries.
- Raj does not eat ice cream and Ravi is eating sandwiches.
- Ram is wearing a yellow shirt and Raj wearing a blue shirt.
- Rohan is eating pizza and is not wearing a green shirt.
Solution 1: As per question there are five friends and each of them is associated with two additional information, i.e. Colour of shirt, and the dish they are eating. Hence we’ll fill table to find solution.
As per the question below table is prepared:
| Name | Raj | Ram | Ravi | Rakesh | Rohan |
| Shirt Colour | Blue | Yellow | |||
| Dish | Sandwich | Pizza |
Above filled data in table is direct from question and didn’t need any reasoning or thinking to fill them. Now we’ll analysis the data that is filled in table with the details given in question, and try to fill rest of them below:
- A person wearing a red shirt is eating pastries, there’s only one column blank for both the items to fit.
- Now two colour shirt is left to fill in table and as per the question, Rohan is not wearing Green colour Shirt. Hence he’s wearing a white colour shirt.
- Left out colour is Green and that’s colour of Ravi’s shirt.
- Now as per the question Raj didn’t eat ice cream, there it’ll be Ram.
- The left out dish is Burger and that’s what Raj is having.
Below is the complete table as per the above analysis:
| Name | Raj | Ram | Ravi | Rakesh | Rohan |
| Shirt Colour | Blue | Yellow | Green | Red | White |
| Dish | Burger | Ice-cream | Sandwich | Pastries | Pizza |
Circular Arrangement
The arrangement of people sitting around a circular table is known as a circular arrangement. There can be 4 types of circular arrangements, based on these types, question solution should be considered.
Example of Circular Seating Arrangement Questions: Round table conference or sitting, Musical Chair, etc.
Example 2: Read below question and draw round table out of the information.
Eight persons Rajesh, Rupesh, Rahul, Radhey, Rakesh, Rajeev, Rajnish, and Raju are sitting around a circle. Some are facing inward while some of them are facing outward. Each of them is going to visit eight different countries, viz Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, the Philippines, Bhutan, Cuba, USA, and Kenya but not necessarily in the same order.
Rakesh sits third to the right of Rupesh and both face the same direction. The one who is going to visit Bhutan faces outward. Raju is going to visit Singapore. The one who is going to visit Cuba and the one who is going to visit the USA are not immediate neighbors. Rakesh sits fourth to the right of the one who is going to visit the USA.
Rajnish sits third to the left of Radhey. Rupesh sits third to the left of Rahul. Only one person sits between Radhey and Rahul. Neither Rakesh nor Radhey is going to visit Bhutan. Only three persons sit between Rakesh and Radhey. Only two persons sit between the one who is going to visit the Philippines and the one who is going to visit Bhutan.
Rajeev is going to visit Thailand. Rajeev sits third to the left of Rajesh. Rajesh is not going to visit the Philippines. Rajesh sits second to the left of Raju. Only three persons sit between Rupesh and Raju. Rupesh is not going to visit Singapore. Rupesh sits second to the left of the one who is going to visit the Philippines.
The one who is going to visit the Philippines sits fourth to the left of the one who is going to visit Myanmar. Only one person sits between the one who is going to visit Singapore and the one who is going to visit the Philippines. The one who is going to visit Singapore sits third to the left of the one who Is going to visit Thailand.
Solution 2: To solve above question we need to create circle and then fill in all the available information first. Then analysis the leftover information with the best-matched options. The final filled circle will look as below:
Seating Arrangement Question for Group Photo
In a group photograph, friends and family members come together and sit or stand in some manner. Questions can be framed on their position or recognising who’s standing or sitting next to some one. Let’s understand with the help of this example:
Example 3:Five friends Minal, Bhagya, Priyanka, Vijay, and Pramod request Ravi their friend to take their photograph. Bhagya who is an attention seeker is always in the middle of Priyanka and Minal.
There is no one to the left of Pramod. Priyanka always stands next to Vijay. There is no girl between two boys. Who is at the right extreme end in the photograph?
Solution 3: The seating arrangement in actual would be Minal- Bhagya-Priyanka-Vijay, and Pramod. But when the photograph of the above arrangement is taken the right and left references are changed.
Since the photograph is held in front of us. The viewer’s right will be the photograph’s left and the photograph’s right would be the viewer’s left. Hence, Minal will be at the right extreme end in the photograph.
Complex Seating Arrangement Questions
Complex Seating Arrangement Questions are similar to linear arrangements in terms of arrangement and details. But unlike linear arrangement, where the objects had only one detail, whereas in the complex arrangement there are multiple details.
Easy methods to solve complex arrangement problem: Table Formation: The data is tabulated to match the values based on the logical conditions.
The number of rows and columns depends on the complexity and the number of details in the questions.
Final Words
Start a new journey to apply logic on Seating Arrangement Questions with multiple approaches in a right and faster way.
For cracking competitive exams one must practice more and more number of Seating Arrangement questions. At last, during the exam, if a solution for the Seating Arrangement Questions cannot be found easily then mark that question to revisit and move ahead instead of wasting time and energy.