Discussion

Answer: E

Correct answer: The doctor sits second to the right of the businessman.

Everyone faces the centre, so each person’s left is the next seat clockwise and their right the next seat anticlockwise.

Put G in place. The politician sits three to G’s right, and C beside G; of C’s two possible seats, only one leaves room for an architect two seats to C’s right without clashing with the politician. B three to H’s right, with H barred from both the politician’s and the architect’s seat, then leaves one workable placing, and A and F must be neighbours with neither of them the politician - which forces E into the politician’s seat and settles A and F. The banker two to A’s left and the doctor two to A’s right complete the picture.

Clockwise the table reads G (pilot) → C (engineer) → H (doctor) → F (teacher) → A (businessman) → E (politician) → D (banker) → B (architect). The teacher is two seats from C as required, the engineer three from D, and the pilot G is clear of the politician.

The businessman is A; two seats to his right - anticlockwise - gives F and then H, the doctor, so that statement holds. Of the others: D is not beside G, G is the pilot rather than the banker, the banker D and the teacher F are three seats apart, and the pilot G sits between the architect B and the engineer C rather than the businessman.