SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 10 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 14 of 100

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 6 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 — A. Every box carries the same five symbols — Y, X, P, E and 4 — and each one moves one step along a fixed closed path.

Rule: top-left → top-right → bottom-right → bottom-left → centre → back to top-left.

Box 1 reads Y(TL), X(TR), P(centre), E(BL), 4(BR).
One step gives P(TL), Y(TR), E(centre), 4(BL), X(BR) — Box 2 exactly as printed.
The same step turns Box 2 into Box 3, and Box 3 into Box 4.

Box 4 is 4(TL), E(TR), X(centre), Y(BL), P(BR). One more step sends X to top-left, 4 to top-right, Y to the centre, P to bottom-left and E to bottom-right — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Option (b) gets top-left and the centre right and then breaks: E sits at top-right where 4 belongs, and 4 drops to bottom-left in place of P.
(c)
Option (c) puts E in the centre. But E was at top-right in Box 4, and the path sends top-right to bottom-right, never to the middle.
(d)
Option (d) is the near-miss — only the bottom two corners are swapped. The cycle sends P to bottom-left and E to bottom-right, not the other way round.

Concept

Figure series of this type do not change the symbols at all — they permute the seats. The set {Y, X, P, E, 4} is identical in all four printed boxes, so nothing is added, removed or reshaped.

The way in is to track one symbol across all four boxes and read off its route. Y goes top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left — a clockwise walk of the corners.

Do the same for P and the missing leg appears: centre back to top-left, which closes a five-position cycle.

The elements are deliberately a mix of letters and a digit so that nothing about them is a clue. The 4 is not a number here — it is a shape occupying a seat, and arithmetic on it leads nowhere.

Key facts

The five symbols Y, X, P, E and 4 appear exactly once in every box of the series.
Each symbol moves one step along the path top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left, centre, back to top-left.
Options (a) and (d) agree on top-left, top-right and the centre, and differ only at the two bottom corners.

Study next

Positional-shift figure series where the symbol set is constant and only the seats changeFive-element cyclic paths that include the centre cell rather than only the four cornersTracking a single element across a series to recover the rule before looking at the options

Common traps

Assuming a plain clockwise corner rotation and forgetting that the centre is a stop on the same path
Choosing option (d), which matches on three positions and swaps the bottom two
Treating the 4 as a number and hunting for arithmetic instead of a change of seat

SSC prints four boxes and asks for the fifth, and following one symbol through all four is faster than comparing whole boxes.
A second figure series sits in this same paper — also asked 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.18 — but there the symbols change kind instead of seat.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.