CAT 2023 Daily Practice Questions for 16 September

Set: A shopping mall has a large basement parking lot with parking slots painted in it along a single row. These slots are quite narrow; a compact car can fit in a single slot but an SUV requires two slots. When a car arrives, the parking attendant guides the car to the first available slot from the beginning of the row into which the car can fit.
For our purpose, cars are numbered according to the order in which they arrive at the lot. For example, the first car to arrive is given a number 1, the second a number 2, and so on. This numbering does not indicate whether a car is a compact or an SUV. The configuration of a parking lot is a sequence of the car numbers in each slot. Each single vacant slot is represented by letter V.
For instance, suppose cars numbered 1 through 5 arrive and park, where cars 1, 3 and 5 are compact cars and 2 and 4 are SUVs. At this point, the parking lot would be described by the sequence 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. If cars 2 and 5 now vacate their slots, the parking lot would now be described as 1, V, V, 3, 4. If a compact car (numbered 6) arrives subsequently followed by an SUV (numbered 7), the parking lot would be described by the sequence 1, 6, V, 3, 4, 7.

Answer the following questions INDEPENDENTLY of each other.

Question 1: Initially cars numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4 arrive among which 1 and 4 are SUVs while 2 and 3 are compact cars. Car 1 then leaves, followed by the arrivals of car 5 (a compact car) and car 6 (an SUV). Car 4 then leaves. Then car 7 (an SUV) and car 8 (a compact car) arrive. At this moment, which among the following numbered car is parked next to car 3?

A. 6
B. 5
C. 8
D. 7

Question 2 : Suppose eight cars have arrived, of which two have left. Also suppose that car 4 is a compact and car 7 is an SUV. Which of the following is a POSSIBLE current configuration of the parking lot?

A. 8, 2, 3, V, 5, 7, 6
B. 8, 2, 3, V, 6, 5, 7
C. 8, 2, 3, V, 5, 6, 7
D. V, 2, 3, 7, 5, 6, 8

Question 3 : Suppose the sequence at some point of time is 4, 5, 6, V, 3. Which of the following is NOT necessarily true?

A. Car 5 is a compact.
B. Car 1 is an SUV.
C. Car 3 is an SUV.
D. Car 4 is a compact.

Question 4 : Suppose that car 4 is not the first car to leave and that the sequence at a time between the arrival of the car 7 and car 8 is V, 7, 3, 6, 5. Then which of the following statements MUST be false?

A. Car 6 is a compact.
B. Car 2 is a compact.
C. Car 7 is a compact.
D. Car 4 is an SUV.