To explain why the basis matrix can be read from the given simplex tableau, I introduce these additional symbols:
- $A \in M_{m\times n}(\Bbb R)$ ($m\le n$) has rank $n$ and current basis matrix $B$.
- $x_B$ denotes the current basic solution.
- $c_B$ denotes the reduced objective function so that $c^T x=c_B^T x_B$. (So the order/arrangement of basic variables is very important.)
As the comment from the asker of the question Need help finding unknowns in simplex tableau. suggests, $B^{-1}$ can be directly read under the columns for slack variables because the initial tableau has the form
\begin{array}{cc|c}
-c^T & 0 & 0 \\ \hline
A & I & b
\end{array}
Multiplying $B^{-1}$ on both sides gives
\begin{array}{cc|c}
c_B^T B^{-1}A-c^T & c_B^T B^{-1} & c_B^T B^{-1}b \\ \hline
B^{-1}A & B^{-1} & B^{-1}b \tag1 \label1
\end{array}
It's given that $B^{-1} = \begin{bmatrix} 2/7 & -1/7 \\ -1/7 & 4/7 \end{bmatrix}$. It's easy to (mentally) calculate $B = \begin{bmatrix} 4 & 1 \\ 1 & 2 \end{bmatrix}$.
To calculate $A$ in the initial tableau, we left multiply $B^{-1}A$ by $B$. ($A = B(B^{-1}A)$). The third column of $A$ is
$$\begin{bmatrix} 4 & 1 \\ 1 & 2 \end{bmatrix}
\begin{bmatrix} 1/7 \\ 17/7 \end{bmatrix}
= \begin{bmatrix} 3 \\ 5 \end{bmatrix}.$$
$$\therefore A = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & 4 & 3 \\ 2 & 1 & 5 \end{bmatrix}$$
$$b = B(B^{-1}b) = \begin{bmatrix} 4 & 1 \\ 1 & 2 \end{bmatrix} \begin{bmatrix} 0 \\ 1 \end{bmatrix} = \begin{bmatrix} 1 \\ 2 \end{bmatrix}$$
To compute the objective function $c$, note that
\begin{align}
c^T &= c_B^T B^{-1}A-(c_B^T B^{-1}A-c^T) \\
&= \begin{bmatrix} 4\\2 \end{bmatrix}^T
\begin{bmatrix} 0 & 1 & 1/7 \\ 1 & 0 & 17/7 \end{bmatrix}
- \begin{bmatrix} 0 & 0 & 17/7 \end{bmatrix} \\
&= \begin{bmatrix} 2 & 4 & 3 \end{bmatrix}
\end{align}
Therefore, the LPP is to maximize $2x_1+4x_2+3x_3$ subject to
$$x_1+4x_2+3x_3 \le 1 \\
2x_1+x_2+5x_3 \le 2 \\
x_1,x_2,x_3 \ge 0.$$