Pariksha SaathiScheduling Puzzle Questions with Solutions
A scheduling puzzle assigns people to days (or months, or dates) using a handful of relational clues — the method is identical to Seating Arrangement, just on a calendar instead of a row of chairs. Here’s the approach, one shared puzzle with four fully worked questions, and a few more to try yourself.
The approach, quickly
- Start with the most absolute clue (a fixed day, like "X visited on Friday") and place it first — relative clues are far easier to apply once you have one fixed anchor point.
- Apply "immediately before/after" clues next, since they fix a relationship between two specific slots rather than leaving multiple possibilities open.
- When a clue only narrows things down to a couple of options, write both down and keep applying the remaining clues to the SAME diagram — don’t restart from scratch each time.
- Fill in the remaining people/days last, using elimination once enough slots are fixed — the final arrangement should satisfy every clue simultaneously, not just the one you used to place each entry.
Worked examples
1. Five friends — Aman, Bina, Chetan, Divya and Esha — visited a library on five different days of the same week, Monday to Friday, one person per day. Esha visited on Friday. Chetan visited immediately before Esha. Aman visited immediately before Chetan. Divya visited immediately after Bina. Bina did not visit on Tuesday. Who visited the library on Monday?
Solution
- Esha = Friday. Chetan (immediately before Esha) = Thursday. Aman (immediately before Chetan) = Wednesday.
- Remaining days, Monday and Tuesday, go to Bina and Divya. Divya is immediately after Bina — among Monday/Tuesday, that only works as Bina = Monday, Divya = Tuesday.
- So the full week is: Bina (Mon), Divya (Tue), Aman (Wed), Chetan (Thu), Esha (Fri).
Answer: Bina
2. Using the same puzzle and clues, who visited the library immediately after Aman?
Solution
- From the full arrangement — Bina (Mon), Divya (Tue), Aman (Wed), Chetan (Thu), Esha (Fri) — the day immediately after Aman’s (Wednesday) is Thursday, which is Chetan.
Answer: Chetan
3. Using the same puzzle and clues, on which day did Divya visit the library?
Solution
- From the full arrangement, Divya visited on Tuesday.
Answer: Tuesday
4. Using the same puzzle and clues, how many people visited the library before Chetan?
Solution
- Chetan visited on Thursday. Before Thursday come Monday (Bina), Tuesday (Divya), and Wednesday (Aman) — three people.
Answer: 3
Try these yourself
Using the same puzzle and clues above, answer these, then check against the answer.
1. Using the same puzzle and clues, who visited the library last (on the final day among these five)?
Answer: Esha
2. Using the same puzzle and clues, on which day did Aman visit the library?
Answer: Wednesday
3. Using the same puzzle and clues, who visited the library immediately before Esha?
Answer: Chetan
Where this comes up
Scheduling Puzzles are a regular topic in the Reasoning/General Intelligence section of every exam Pariksha Saathi covers — SSC CGL, SSC MTS, SSC CHSL, IBPS PO, IBPS Clerk, SBI PO and SBI Clerk.
Practice more Scheduling Puzzle questions
This page covers the approach and a worked puzzle. Pariksha Saathi has full topic-wise practice sets for Scheduling Puzzles (and every other Reasoning/Quant/English topic) with instant scoring and explanations — free, no account required.
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