Hello bike savvy people:

I just had a new cassette delivered for my mountain bike (an SRAM PG 850 11-32). The cassette has 8 cogs. There are plastic spacers separating the first 6 largest cogs that fix their orientation with respect to one another. The 7th and 8th cogs (12T and 11T) are loose, and seem to have a metal spacers built-in. I've attached a photo. My questions:

1.Is this normal that the 12T cog isn't attached using a plastic spacer like all the other cogs?
2. When I put the two loose cogs onto the hub body, does their orientation wrt the other cogs matter? If so, what is the proper orientation?

Hopefully someone here can set me straight. It would be greatly appreciated!