Input:    youth   39   stoke   47    hot    flow    94    55 How many steps will be required to complete the rearrangement? 

How words and numbers are arranged in the final step: Words are arranged in ascending order and numbers are arranged in descending order in the final step.   What machine is doing in each step: In the first step one word is getting arranged from the left side in ascending order and in the second step one number is getting arranged from the left side in descending order and so on. Input:    youth   39   stoke   47       hot    flow               94            55 Step I:   flow         youth   39            stoke   47               hot       94    55 Step II:   flow        94           youth   39            stoke   47            hot     55 Step III:   flow94                 hot    youth         39            stoke   47                55 Step IV:   flow94                hot       55   youth              39            stoke   47            Step V:   flow94 hot       55   stoke               youth   39             47         Step VI: flow94                 hot       55   stoke               47           youth   39 Step 6^th is the last step So total 6 steps are needed to complete the rearrangement.