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After crossing the chessboard path succe...

After crossing the chessboard path successfully, Mario now enters a dungeon where the next clue to get into the main chambers is hidden. In the dungeon, there is a row of 10 rooms and the Devil Ghost Banshee is in one of them. Each day, the ghost moves to an adjacent room. Mario now has to find the creature as soon as possible. But the problem is, Mario can open only one door in a day. What is the minimum no. of days that can guarentee Mario catch the ghost ?

A

10

B

13

C

16

D

None of these

Text Solution

Verified by Experts

Tip:​ Look at the horizontal number­line on keyboard for reference (with ‘0’ as room no 10).   Let the rooms be numbered from 1 to 10.   
Mario can open any door, one in a day. While ghost has to keeping sliding to an adjacent  room (i.e. ​Each day ghost’s room number follows odd­even pattern)​ .  This means if mario starts from an even numbered room, while ghost is initially in odd numbered room, on next day mario will be in odd & ghost will be in even i.e. it is impossible  to catch the ghost without switching the even­odd pattern. 
The ghost always has two doors to shift into, except when at end rooms 1 & 10. We can  block only one room at a time for it. So in the worst case, it may escape us by shifting to the other(which we didn’t block) room every time. But we can surely catch it when it is at end  rooms 1 or 10 & we are at two rooms distance from it (3 or 8), then ghost will be caught in  room 2 or room 9.  The way to ensure this is :​ sequentially open rooms from 2 to 9(both inclusive) and  then go backwards from rooms 9 to 2​. Note that we open room 9 twice consecutively so  that we switch our odd­even pattern.  If ghost is in even room number in the start .. You will catch in the forward move  If ghost is in odd room number in the start .. You will catch in the backward move 
● Why did we start from 2 & not other number, say 3 ? ­gt Starting from 3 onwards will  give it a chance to oscillate in between 1 & 2 (starting from even no= 2), so we have  to start from 2. 
● Why did we come backwards from 9 to 2? ­gt If ghost was in odd room at start, we  won’t catch it in foreward move, then in such cases the backward move is required.
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