Efficient problem solving can make you a winner

Gloomy day in a school, we had an activity called arranging cups from smallest to biggest. We have given cups in random order, size varies from 1 to 10.

Cups initial arrangement is like these numbers are their size

7 5 3 2 4 1 6 10 9 8 and position considered from 1 to 10

Certain rules were set to make you a winner.

1. You should be able to do that in 5 exchanges.
2. The time limit was 5 minutes (300 seconds).
3. Should be the first one to complete.

Below things don’t make you a winner

1. If you complete it first and take more than 5 exchanges to complete, it will not make you a winner.

How will you approach it?

This is exactly how I solved, made me the winner

I glanced at all the cups for 10 seconds. And used the below technique in 5 steps

Step 1: Exchanged cup in position 8 with a cup in position 10

Step 2: Exchanged cup in position 6 with position 7

Step 3: Exchanged cup in position 4th with position 5

Step 4: Exchanged cup in position 1 with position 7

Step 5: Exchanged cup in position 2 with position 5

I was able to apply the above logic in 5 minutes and made me the winner

Thank you

Akshitha