BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 5 of 150

Correct — B, Mohinder. Alphabetical order is settled position by position from the left: compare the first letters, and only if they are identical move to the second, and so on, the first position at which two names differ deciding the matter outright. Stack the four names one under another and read down the columns rather than across the words. Column 1 gives M, M, M, M for Mahinder, Mohinder, Mohender and Mahendra — identical, so it carries no information at all. Column 2 gives a, o, o, a, and this is the first split: 'a' precedes 'o', so both names beginning Ma- come before both names beginning Mo-, and the name that appears last must be Mohinder or Mohender. Column 3 gives h, h, h, h — again identical and again useless. Column 4 gives i, i, e, e, and this is the second split: within the Mo- pair, Mohender has 'e' and Mohinder has 'i', and since 'e' precedes 'i' in the alphabet, Mohender comes before Mohinder. Mohinder therefore stands last, which is option (b). The full order of all four is Mahendra, Mahinder, Mohender, Mohinder — and note that columns 5 and 6, both n and both d for every name, and columns 7 and 8, which alone would separate Mahendra from the rest, are never consulted, because the decision has already been made at column 4. Two letter positions out of eight decide this entire question.

• (a)Mahinder — Second in the order, and it is the answer of a candidate who sorts on the wrong column. The visually striking difference across the set is '-hinder' against '-hender', so the eye fastens on column 4 and never checks column 2 — but column 2 is the earlier one and therefore the decisive one, and Mahinder's 'a' there puts it ahead of both names beginning Moh-. In lexicographic comparison an earlier position always outranks a later one, exactly as the hundreds digit outranks the units digit in a number.
• (c)Mohender — Third in the order, and the closest wrong answer on the page: it matches Mohinder exactly for M, o and h, so everything turns on column 4, where Mohender has 'e' and Mohinder has 'i'. Since 'e' is the fifth letter of the alphabet and 'i' the ninth, Mohender comes first of the two. This option is picked by candidates who reach column 4 correctly and then reverse its verdict, and by anyone who stops at column 3, where the two Moh- names are still tied and look interchangeable.
• (d)Mahendra — First of all four — 'a' at column 2 and 'e' at column 4 — so it is the precise answer to the opposite question. It is also the most visually distinctive of the set, being the only one that ends in a vowel and the only one spelt in the standard Devanagari-to-Roman form of the name, which makes it stand out and feel like the odd, and therefore the extreme, member. The stem asks which name appears in the last, and a candidate who works the order out correctly and then reads off the wrong end of it loses the mark at the final step.

Alphabetical order, called lexicographic order once it is stated as a rule, is a strict left-to-right comparison and nothing else. To place two strings, compare the characters at position 1; if they are the same, move to position 2; continue until the first position at which they differ, and let the alphabet's own order — a before b before c, up to z — decide. Everything after that first difference is irrelevant, however long the words are. One extra clause completes the rule: if one word matches the other all the way through and then simply runs out, the shorter word comes first, so 'Ram' precedes 'Rama' and 'Since' precedes 'Sincere'. Length otherwise decides nothing, and a longer word is not a later word. This single rule is what builds a dictionary, a telephone directory, a book index, an electoral roll and a merit list arranged by name, and it is the default sort for text in every computer language. The one refinement worth knowing but not applying in an exam: a naive computer sort compares character codes, and in ASCII and Unicode every capital letter sorts before every small letter, so a machine would put 'Zebra' before 'apple'. Exam setters always intend the ordinary dictionary sense, in which case is ignored.

The reasoning is mechanical, so write the four names one beneath another and read down the columns instead of across the words. Column 1 is M for all four and settles nothing. Column 2 reads a, o, o, a — the first split, and since 'a' precedes 'o' the two Ma- names both fall behind the two Mo- names, which already removes options (a) and (d) from contention for the last place. Column 3 is h for all four and again settles nothing. Column 4 reads i, i, e, e — the second split — and 'e' precedes 'i', so Mohender comes before Mohinder and the last name is Mohinder. The full order is Mahendra, Mahinder, Mohender, Mohinder. The single fact that discriminates is that an earlier column always outranks a later one: the difference at column 2 decides the outcome no matter what happens at column 4, exactly as 4,321 beats 4,297 on the hundreds digit and the units digit never gets a vote. Length is useless as a shortcut here, because all four names are exactly eight letters long. The real difficulty is not the rule but the reading. All four options are transliterations of the same Indian name, and the eye recognises the word as a familiar shape instead of reading its letters, so candidates end up comparing how the names look rather than what they contain. Covering the page with a finger and revealing one column at a time is a two-second habit that removes the problem entirely. Finally, underline the word 'last' in the stem before you begin: this family of question flips between 'first', 'last' and 'third' from paper to paper, and option (d) is the alphabetically first name, sitting there for exactly that slip.

• The rule of lexicographic order: compare two strings position by position from the left and let the first position at which they differ decide; if one string is a complete prefix of the other, the shorter one comes first, so Ram precedes Rama and Kumar precedes Kumari.
• The full order of this set is Mahendra, Mahinder, Mohender, Mohinder, so option (b) Mohinder appears last and option (d) Mahendra appears first.
• Only two of the eight letter positions carry any information. Positions 1 (M), 3 (h), 5 (n) and 6 (d) are identical across all four names; position 2 splits a-a from o-o and position 4 splits e-e from i-i. Positions 7 and 8 are never reached, because the decision is already made.
• Length decides nothing here — all four names are exactly eight letters long — and in general a longer word is not a later word; length only matters in the prefix case.
• The same rule orders a dictionary, a telephone directory, a book index, an electoral roll and any merit list arranged by name, and it is the letter version of comparing numbers from the most significant digit: 4,321 against 4,297 is settled at the hundreds place and the units place never gets a vote.

• Sorting on the visually obvious later column ('-hinder' against '-hender') and never checking the earlier column, where the real split happens
• Working out the correct order and then reading off the wrong end of it, because the stem asks for the last name and the alphabetically first name is also on the list
• Stopping at the third letter, where the two Moh- names are still tied, or trying to order by length or by which spelling looks more familiar

BPSC builds this item out of near-identical transliterations of a single Indian name, so the difficulty lies entirely in refusing to recognise the word and forcing yourself to read the letters, and it then asks for the last name rather than the first, which is where the marks actually leak. UPSC's own ordering question in GS Paper-I was arithmetical rather than visual: its 2007 item asked for the position of SACHIN among all 720 dictionary-ordered arrangements of its six letters, which needs this same rule plus factorial counting. Since 2011 the type has lived in CSAT Paper-II. BPSC tests whether you can apply the rule accurately at speed; UPSC tested whether you could count with it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  If the following words are arranged in dictionary order, which one will come first?

  • (a)Sincere
  • (b)Sincerely
  • (c)Since
  • (d)Sincerity

  Answer(c) Since — it matches the other three for its first five letters and then runs out, and a word that is an exact prefix of another always comes earlier. The full order is Since, Sincere, Sincerely, Sincerity.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Arranged in dictionary order, which of the following names will appear last?

  • (a)Ramesh
  • (b)Ramnath
  • (c)Ramanuj
  • (d)Rampal

  Answer(d) Rampal — all four share R, a and m, so the fourth letter decides, and the sequence a, e, n, p puts Rampal last. The full order is Ramanuj, Ramesh, Ramnath, Rampal.