The Recruitment Office Puzzle

Question

Eight People A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H are sitting in a straight line, all of them facing the same direction (say North). Each one of them has passed a recruitment exam and must join the office on different months viz. January, February, March, April, May, June, July and August but not necessarily in the same order.

G sits third to the right of the person who joins in May. The person who joins in August sits second to the right of G. A and E are immediate neighbors of each other. Neither A nor E have joining dates either in May or August. Neither A nor E is an immediate neighbor of G.

H sits third to the right of the person whose joining date is in January. Neither A nor E join in January. H's joining date is not in August. Only two people sit between E and the person whose joining date is in July.

The person whose joining date is in February sits to the immediate left of D. Only one person sits between E and B. C joins on one of the months before July. E joins after April. G joins the office after A.

Now the Question,

If H is related to 'July' in a certain way based on the above arrangement and B is related to 'June' following the same pattern, Find out Who is related to 'May' following the same pattern?

_{P.S. I don't claim this puzzle to be mine. I read it in a newspaper and liked it. So, I have posted it here. I couldn't find it on the internet. Source- The Indian express}

Answer 1

The final seating arrangement is:

A E C B F G H D
3 6 5 1 7 4 2 8

where letters are the persons and numbers the months. H sits two to the right of the person starting in July and B sits two to the right of the person starting in June, so the question is: Who sits two to the right of ther person staring in May? and the answer is F.

The first paragraph leaves us with ...

. . . . . G . . . .
. . 5 . . . . 8 . .

We take G's place as fixed, but we dont know yet how much the seats extend, so at the moment there are ten seats instead of eight. The both places next to G can't bei A or E and the two places with months assigned can't be A or E, either.

A and E are adjacent, so they must either be left of 5 or right of 8.

The second paragraph leaves us with ...

. . . . . G . H
. . 5 . 1 . . 8

H sits three to the left of 1. The 1 can't be directly to the right of G, because that would mean that H is in one of the right seats (of the 10-seat arrangement), but these are taken by A and E. Likewise, 1 can't be in the two leftmost seats (again, of the 10-seat row), because that also must be A or E if anything and we are told that neither A nor E start in January.

That means that the one goes directly to the left of **G*. It also means that the two righmost chairs (of our hypotheti 10-seat row) are not used.

The rest of that paragraph means that ...

A E . B . G . H
. . 5 7 1 . . 8

There are two people between E and 7. Because E is either in the first or second seat, that pattern must be 'E . . 7`. There is only one possibility to make this and also the condition that there is only one person between E and B fit.

The rest is easily filled in by using the hints in the last paragraph about who joins before/after someone else or before/after a certain date.

Answer 2

Full Arrangement:

A(3) E(6) C(5) B(1) F(7) G(4) H(2) D(8)

Final Answer:

"F" (two to the right of the month)

Work: (Mostly 1st Paragraph)

. . . G . .
5 . . . . 8

Missing both A&E which as a pair which can't touch G, nor be 5 or 8, and are thus either left or right of display.

Work: (Mostly 2nd Paragraph)

H can't be 8, nor can he be left or right of what was shown, nor can he be 3rd to the right of A&E.

. . . G H .
5 1 . . . 8

Work:

One person sits between E and B. G+H prevent this to the right.
Two people sit between E and 7. 5+1 force location of E & 7.
E=6 because it's excluded from being anything else.
A E . B . G H .
. 6 5 1 7 . . 8

Work:

C isn't 7 or 8 so it must be 5.
2 is next to and left of D
Unshown is G joined after A.
A E C B . G H D
. 6 5 1 7 . 2 8

And my apologies about the formatting of this. I haven't figured out how to have it be both spoiler'ed AND monospace.