SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 25 of 98

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Identify the figure given in the options which when put in place of the question mark (?) will logically complete the series?

Answer

Why

Correct — D.

Rule: the five letters run on a fixed chain, D → U → P → O → S → D, and at every step each letter in the box moves one place along it.

Box 4 reads O top-left, P top-right, S in the centre, D bottom-left, U bottom-right.

Move each on one place: O → S, P → O, S → D, D → U, U → P.

That gives S top-left, O top-right, D in the centre, U bottom-left and P bottom-right — option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Only the top-left and bottom-left letters have been stepped on. The centre shows P where box 4's S must advance to D, and the top-right shows D where its P must advance to O.
(b)
The centre has not moved at all — box 4's S is still sitting there instead of advancing to D — and the top-left shows U rather than S.
(c)
Both top corners are right and then the centre overshoots: S advances one place to D, not two places to U. The bottom-left shows P where the rule requires U.

Concept

A figure series made of letters is a positional puzzle. Each of the five slots carries its own sequence, and all five sequences run on the same short chain.

Read one slot down the four boxes before looking at anything else. The top-left slot reads D, U, P, O — one step each time along D, U, P, O, S. Every other slot does the same, starting from a different point on the chain.

Because the chain is five letters long and there are five slots, every box carries all five letters, only rotated.

There is a second way to see it. Reading each box as top-left, centre, bottom-left, bottom-right, top-right gives DUPOS, then UPOSD, then POSDU, then OSDUP — five consecutive letters of the same repeating chain, starting one place later each time. The answer box reads SDUPO.

Key facts

The repeating chain is D, U, P, O, S and then back to D.
Every letter in the box advances one place along that chain from one box to the next.
All four given boxes hold the same five letters in different positions.
The answer box has S top-left, O top-right, D in the centre, U bottom-left and P bottom-right.

Study next

Figure series where a shape rotates a fixed number of degrees at each stepSeries in which one element moves clockwise while another moves anticlockwiseMatrix items that complete a three-by-three grid rather than a row

Common traps

Comparing whole boxes instead of tracking one position at a time
Advancing four of the slots and leaving the centre where it was
Advancing two places because the chain wraps from S back to D

SSC sets this as a picture even though the content is letters, and the four options differ only in which letter sits in which corner. Reasoning Q.3 of this shift is the same picture-of-symbols construction, with letters and digits sharing each box.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.