Unit 14 · Ordering Deduction

Idris & the Four Treasure Boxes — Which Fourth Clue?

Lesson 5 of 6

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Idris has four treasure boxes (W, X, Y, Z) and three ordering clues. From them he can work out W > X > Z and W > Y — but Y's position relative to X and Z is still unknown (three possibilities). The question asks which fourth clue would make the ordering unique. The trick is to test each option and see whether it collapses all possibilities to exactly one.

Chapters

0:00Introduction
0:21The Question
1:25Building the Anchor Chain
1:53The Floating Box Problem
2:21Exam Strategy – Pinning the Floater
2:46Testing the Options
3:22Final Verification and Answer

Question

Idris is trying to solve a puzzle. He has four boxes labelled W, X, Y, and Z. He knows that there is a different amount of treasure in each box. He has four clues about the boxes (the fourth clue is not shown):

Clue 1: Box X contains more treasure than box Z.

Clue 2: Box W contains more treasure than box Y.

Clue 3: Box W contains more treasure than box X.

After reading all four clues, Idris is able to put the chests in order of how much treasure they contain.

Which one of the following could be the fourth clue?

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