SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 22 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.

44 is related to 1936 by certain logic. Following the same logic, 59 is related to 3481. To which of the following is 77 related, following the same logic? (NOTE : Operations should be performed on the whole numbers, without breaking down the numbers into its constituent digits. E.g. 13 – Operations on 13 such as adding /deleting /multiplying etc., to 13 can be performed. Breaking down 13 into 1 and 3 and then performing mathematical operations on 1 and 3 is not allowed.)

(a)5824
(b)5929
(c)7642
(d)4469

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Test the two worked examples for the simplest operation available.

44 → 1936: 44 × 44 = 1936 ✓
59 → 3481: 59 × 59 = 3481 ✓

Rule: the second number is the square of the first.

77 × 77:
70 × 77 = 5390
7 × 77 = 539
5390 + 539 = 5929 → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
5824 — 5824 is not a perfect square. It falls between 76² = 5776 and 77² = 5929, so no whole number squares to it.
(c)
7642 — 7642 ends in 2, and no perfect square ends in 2. It is also stranded between 87² = 7569 and 88² = 7744.
(d)
4469 — 4469 is far too small: 77² must exceed 70² = 4900. It is not a square either, sitting just under 67² = 4489.

Concept

'A is related to B by a certain logic' hides one arithmetic operation. Try squares and cubes first, because they are what turn a two-digit number into a four-digit one.

44 → 1936 is exactly that two-digit to four-digit jump, which rules out addition, subtraction and small multipliers before you compute anything.

Split the multiplication rather than doing it in one go: 77 × 77 becomes 70 × 77 plus 7 × 77, which is two easy products and one sum.

SSC's whole-number NOTE matters here. Without it, 1936 could be read as 19 and 36, and the search would run off into digit patterns that do not exist.

Key facts

44² = 1936 and 59² = 3481, which fixes the rule as squaring.
77² = 5929.
A perfect square never ends in 2, 3, 7 or 8, which eliminates 7642 with no multiplication at all.

Study next

Squares and cubes of two-digit numbers recognised on sightLast-digit tests for deciding whether a number can be a perfect squareNumber analogies built on n² + n or n² − n rather than n² alone

Common traps

Reading 1936 as 19 and 36 despite the NOTE, and hunting for a digit rule that is not there.
Estimating instead of squaring — 5824 and 5929 are close enough that a rough figure cannot separate them.

Squares also decide the odd-one-out at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.16, where each pair reads n and (n − 2)². SSC's whole-number NOTE is printed on both.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.