CIRCLE is related to RICELC in the same way SQUARE is related to

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, UQSERA. Extract the rule from the pair you are given before touching the options. Number the letters of CIRCLE: C(1) I(2) R(3) C(4) L(5) E(6). Now read RICELC against those numbers: R is the letter from position 3, I from 2, C from 1, E from 6, L from 5, C from 4. The output is therefore the input taken in the order 3, 2, 1, 6, 5, 4 — the first three letters reversed among themselves, and the last three reversed among themselves. The same operation stated more simply: cut the word in half, CIR and CLE, and reverse each half separately, giving RIC and ELC, which joined is RICELC. Both descriptions are worth having, because agreeing with each other is a check that you have read the example correctly. There is a further check hidden in this particular word: CIRCLE has a C at positions 1 and 4, and RICELC has a C at positions 3 and 6, which is exactly where the rule sends them. Now apply it to SQUARE: S(1) Q(2) U(3) A(4) R(5) E(6). Taking positions 3, 2, 1, 6, 5, 4 gives U, Q, S, E, R, A — UQSERA. By the halves method, SQU and ARE reverse to UQS and ERA, joined as UQSERA. That is option (d), and the two routes agree. What makes the question worth its mark is that the other three options are each a near-miss produced by getting one part of the operation right and one part wrong, so a candidate who has half-derived the rule will still find something on the list that looks familiar.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) SQUARE written backwards. This is the single most common wrong answer in letter-analogy questions, because full reversal is the first transformation anyone tests and it superficially resembles what happened to CIRCLE. It fails the demonstrated rule: reversing CIRCLE whole gives ELCRIC, not RICELC. Notice too that ERAUQS is UQSERA with its two halves swapped, so a candidate who derives the right answer but then writes the halves in the wrong order lands here.  (b) Moves the second half, ARE, to the front unchanged and puts the reversed first half, UQS, behind it. Two operations are muddled together — swapping the halves, and reversing only one of them. The demonstrated rule does neither: it keeps the halves in their original order and reverses each of them in place. Applied to CIRCLE this option's rule would give CLERIC, which is not what the stem shows.  (c) Reverses the first half correctly to UQS but leaves ARE untouched. It is the answer of someone who spotted half the rule and stopped, and it is the most dangerous option here because its opening three letters are identical to the correct answer's. Applied to CIRCLE it would give RICCLE, which does not match the demonstrated output — the tell is the last three letters, which must be reversed as well.

Concept: A verbal analogy of the form 'A is to B as C is to ?' is a two-step task, and almost all the marks are lost in the first step. Step one is to infer the transformation from the pair you are given; step two is to apply it. Because a single example is consistent with more than one rule in principle, the reliable method is positional: write the source word with its letter positions, write the target under it, and record where each output letter came from. That produces a permutation — here 3, 2, 1, 6, 5, 4 — which is unambiguous and can be applied mechanically. The transformations examiners actually use on six-letter words are a small family, and it is worth being able to recognise all of them: whole-word reversal, reversal of each half in place, swapping the halves without reversal, swapping adjacent pairs, a constant alphabetical shift such as +3, an alternating shift such as +2 then −2, and replacement of each letter by its opposite in the alphabet, where A pairs with Z and B with Y. This paper's option list is essentially a menu of the first three of those, which is why extracting the exact permutation, rather than the general flavour, is what decides the question.

State PCS 2025 Q97 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q97 — Science & Technology PYQ with Answer