How do you rank things when there is a tie (see details)?

) July 25th, 2016

Suppose there are four contestants and two of them are tied for second place. Would you say the person who came in last got third place or fourth place?

In other words, which of these two ways would you represent the rankings:

First place: Contestant 1
Second place: Contestants 2 and 3
Third place: Contestant 4

First place: Contestant 1
Second place: Contestants 2 and 3
Fourth place: Contestant 4

I’ve seen it done both ways, and I can understand the logic for each. But I’m wondering what you all think.

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6 Answers

Contestant 4 came in 4th. There were three people ahead of him.

zenvelo (39418

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Contestant 4 had a 4th place finish.

BellaB (6456

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Response moderated (Unhelpful)

Neither.

After three contestants have received awards, tied or not, I don’t know why a fourth gets a place award at all. If three tied for first, that’s three awards. Two more people don’t suddenly get awards because of that.

Likewise, if two tied for first, the third person gets third place, and there’s no second.

That’s how I’d do it, anyway.

If possible, I’d say plan ahead for a tiebreaker round.

Or did I misunderstand? Are there only three winning places, or are you going on and ranking the 10th, the 20th, the 60th…?

Jeruba (55829

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The way I’ve always seen it done is contestants 4 is in 4th place. Similarly, if there were a 3-way tie for second place (example, contestants 2, 3, and 4), the next listed contestant would have fifth place.

Strauss (23622

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