SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 23 of 95

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.

Which figure should replace the question mark (?) if the following series were to be continued?

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Read each box as two columns: left = top-left, centre, bottom-left; right = top-right, middle-right, bottom-right.

Rule for the even steps — figure 2 to figure 3, and so figure 4 to figure 5: each column slides down one place, the bottom symbol wrapping round to the top.

Figure 4 reads + ☆ / D 8 / N 2.
Left column (+, D, N) slides to (N, +, D).
Right column (☆, 8, 2) slides to (2, ☆, 8).

The box becomes N 2 / + ☆ / D 8, which is option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
The top and middle rows are mirrored left-to-right instead of slid: 2 and N are exchanged, and so are + and ☆. The even-step shuffle keeps every symbol inside its own column.
(c)
The middle row is right, but the top and bottom rows are each reversed left-to-right — 2 traded with N, D traded with 8. Sliding a column never exchanges entries between the columns.
(d)
The right column is correct, but the left column has slid two places instead of one: (+, D, N) has become (D, N, +) rather than (N, +, D).

Concept

A figural series built from letters and symbols is a positional puzzle, not a meaning puzzle. Label the six slots once — top-left, top-right, centre, middle-right, bottom-left, bottom-right — and then track where each symbol goes rather than what it is.

The economical move is to follow a single symbol across all four given boxes and write down its slot sequence. Here 8 runs bottom-right, middle-right, bottom-right, middle-right, which shows at once that consecutive steps are not all the same move and that alternate steps repeat.

Steps 1 to 2 and 3 to 4 use a different shuffle from steps 2 to 3 and 4 to 5, so comparing figure 4 against figure 3 would give you the wrong movement. The reliable model for the last step is the figure 2 to figure 3 step.

Key facts

The symbol 8 sits at bottom-right, middle-right, bottom-right, middle-right across figures 1 to 4.
In the even step the left column cycles top-left, centre, bottom-left and back to top-left.
The right column cycles the same way, top-right to middle-right to bottom-right.
Figure 4 is + ☆ / D 8 / N 2, and one downward cycle of each column gives N 2 / + ☆ / D 8.

Study next

Figure series whose movement alternates between two rules on odd and even stepsIdentifying a rule by tracking one element's slot sequence rather than the whole boxSymbol-position series that rotate around a ring of slots instead of down a column

Common traps

Assuming every step of a figure series applies the same transformation.
Mirroring the box left-to-right, which produces two of the wrong choices here.
Sliding a column by two places instead of one.

The stem 'Which figure should replace the question mark (?) if the following series were to be continued?' recurs across shifts — also at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.3 and 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.8. Reasoning Q.5 of the same paper asks the same skill as a completion item.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.