Question

You have three chests in front of you. The first chest is labeled “GOLD”, the second is labeled “SILVER” and the third is labeled “GOLD OR SILVER”. You have been told that all the labels are on the wrong chests and that one chest contain gold coins, one contains silver coins and one contains bronze coins. How many chests do you need to open to deduce which label goes on which chest ?

• A. 0
• B. 1
• C. 2
• D. Cannot deduce

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

The problem involves three chests with incorrect labels. To determine which chest contains which type of coins, we must use the information provided that the labels are misplaced. Here's the step-by-step solution:

• Step 1: Choose the chest labeled "GOLD OR SILVER". Since all labels are incorrect, this chest cannot contain gold or silver coins, so it must contain bronze coins.
• Step 2: This leaves two chests: one labeled "GOLD" and one labeled "SILVER". One of these must contain gold and the other silver, but they are incorrectly labeled.
• Step 3: Open one more chest. Choose the chest labeled "GOLD". Since it cannot contain gold due to incorrect labeling, opening it will reveal either silver or bronze coins. However, since we already know the chest labeled "GOLD OR SILVER" contains bronze coins, this has to reveal silver coins.
• Conclusion: As a result, the chest labeled "SILVER" must contain gold coins.

Thus, you need to open 2 chests to deduce the labels correctly: the chest marked "GOLD OR SILVER" and the chest marked "GOLD".