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Bunuel
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ananya3
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[quote="akadiyan"]At a dinner party, 8 students (Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, Neville, and 3 Beauxbatons students) are to be seated around a circular table. 2 seating arrangements are considered different only when the positions of the people are different relative to each other. What is the total number of different possible seating arrangements for the group if the 3 Beauxbatons students insist on sitting next to each other and Hermione and Ron insist on sitting apart?

Arrangement around a circular table = (N-1)!

Total arrangement:
{George}, {Fred}, {Neville}, {Hermione , Ron} , {B1} , {B2} , {B3}
Now we have 7 units and can be arranged in a circular table in (7-1)! = 6! # of ways = 720 ways

Restriction:
1.Hermione and Ron insist on sitting apart.
2.Three Beauxbatons students insist on sitting next to each other.

Arrangement with restriction looks like
{George}, {Fred}, {Neville}, {Hermione , Ron} , {B1, B2, B3}

We have 5 units, so total arrangements = (N-1)! = 4! = 24 ways
Hermione and Ron can be arranged in 2 ways
Beauxbatons can be arranged in 6 ways

Number of arrangements with restriction = 24*2*6 = 288

Total number of arrangements:
The total number of arrangements = {Total} - {Restriction} = 720 - 288 = 432

Ans: D[/quote

Kindly clarify why you take total arrangement as 6!. Given there are 8 students, shouldn't the total arrangement be 7!?
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but the question states that Hermione, Ron are sitting apart not next to each other
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Bunuel
At a dinner party, 8 students (Hermione, Ron, Fred, George, Neville, and 3 Beauxbatons students) are to be seated around a circular table. 2 seating arrangements are considered different only when the positions of the people are different relative to each other. What is the total number of different possible seating arrangements for the group if the 3 Beauxbatons students insist on sitting next to each other and Hermione and Ron insist on sitting apart?

A. 36
B. 72
C. 108
D. 432
E. 1,728

I am going to consider total scenarios already considering the restriction of 3 B together:

We have the following persons to arrange H, R, F, G, N and {B} (representin 3 B)

Total scenarios = (n-1)! [Circular arrangement] * 3! [arringing the 3 B inside the group] = 5!*3! = 720

We need now to exclude where R and H sit together -> We follow the same logic but with another additional group of {HR} representing R and H sitting together
{HR} F, G, N and {B}

R, H sitting together = 2 [arrangement of R and H inside their group] * 4! [Circular Arrangements (n-1)!] * 3! [arringing the 3 B inside the group] = 288

Favorable cases = 720-288 = 432 (D)
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