SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 8 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. Two things change together, so settle them separately.

Rule: the letter B turns 90 degrees clockwise each step, and the asterisk moves one station clockwise round the panel.

Track B by its straight spine: bottom, then left (the upright B), then top, then right. The next quarter-turn puts the spine back along the bottom, both bumps opening upward.

Track the asterisk: top-left, top-centre, top-right, middle-right, so next it stands at the bottom-right. Option (a) is the figure with both.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
The asterisk is in the right place, but the B is left upright, the way it stood in the second panel — three steps back. The letter has to turn at every step.
(c)
Two faults at once: the B is a mirror image rather than a rotation, and the asterisk is parked at the bottom-centre instead of the bottom-right corner.
(d)
This is the mirror image of the figure required. Its larger, lower bump ends up on the left, where a genuine quarter-turn puts it on the right.

Concept

When two elements move in one series, solve each on its own and then demand that a single option satisfy both.

Track the letter by one feature. The straight spine of B is the easiest: bottom, left, top, right across the four panels, a quarter turn clockwise each time.

Track the asterisk by its station: top-left, top-centre, top-right, middle-right, which is one station clockwise each time round the panel.

A rotation never produces a mirror image, so an option whose letter is flipped is wrong however well its asterisk fits.

Three of the four options place the asterisk at the bottom-right, so the asterisk alone does not decide this item. The orientation of the letter does.

Key facts

A rotation preserves handedness, so a rotated B can never look like a mirrored B.
The straight spine of B gives its orientation at a glance: bottom, left, top or right.
The asterisk advances one station per panel: top-left, top-centre, top-right, middle-right.

Study next

Telling rotation from reflection using a feature that has a left and a rightSeries turning by 45 degrees, where eight orientations appear instead of fourMirror-image and water-image items, which drill the reflection these rotations exclude

Common traps

Choosing the mirrored letter because at a glance it resembles the first panel
Solving the asterisk alone, which three of the four options here satisfy
Turning the letter anticlockwise, which puts the spine back on top and repeats the third panel

The stem asks only for the figure that logically completes the series, and does not say that two elements are moving. Reasoning Q.7 of this shift runs the same format with a single moving element.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.