Mislabeled Baskets

Puzzle Level :-Easy

PUZZLE

              You have 3 baskets of fruits. One basket contains Apple, other contains Oranges and the third basket contains both Apple and Oranges. These baskets are mislabelled and You can't peep into basket to find what it contains.

     You have to label basket correctly. You are allowed to pick as many fruits as you want from each basket to fix the labels on baskets. What is the minimum number of fruits that you have to pick and from which basket to correctly label them?

ANSWER

 Need to pick 1 fruit from basket labelled as Apples&Oranges

SOLUTION

We have three baskets with labels as below

• Basket-1  ==> Apples
• Basket-2  ==> Oranges
• Basket-3  ==> Apples & Oranges

Since here odd one is 3rd basket since it mentions that it has both Apples and Oranges.

Pick one fruit from Basket-3.

It will be either Apple or Orange

Case-1 (Apple is Picked)

 if the Basket-3 contains Apple then Basket-3 should be labelled as Apples

We know all baskets are mislabelled and Basket-2 labelled as Orange

Since it is wrong  the other remaining label is Apples & Oranges

so Basket-2 contains mix of both Apples and Oranges

and obviously Basket-1 will have Oranges

So finally correct labels are

• Basket-1  ==> Oranges
• Basket-2  ==> Apples & Oranges
• Basket-3  ==> Apples

Case-2 (Orange is Picked)

if the Basket-3 contains Oranges then Basket-3 should be labelled as Oranges

Same logic as Case-1 is applicable here, with that logic we can conclude  Basket-1 will have Apples&Oranges

and Basket-2 will have Apples

• Basket-1  ==> Apples & Oranges
• Basket-2  ==> Apples
• Basket-3  ==> Oranges

In both cases if we pick single fruit from Basket-3  which is labelled as Apples & Oranges

we can correct the labels.

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