SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 20 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 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. Follow one symbol across the four boxes and the whole rule falls out.

P sits at the top-left in box 1, the top-right in box 2, the centre in box 3 and the bottom-right in box 4.

Rule: the five slots form a ring — top-left, top-right, centre, bottom-right, bottom-left, back to top-left — and every symbol advances one slot per box.

Check it on box 1 (P top-left, 0 top-right, 1 centre, W bottom-left, X bottom-right). Advancing each by one slot gives W top-left, P top-right, 0 centre, X bottom-left, 1 bottom-right, which is box 2 as drawn.

Now box 4 is 1 top-left, X top-right, W centre, 0 bottom-left, P bottom-right. Advance each: 1 to top-right, X to centre, W to bottom-right, P to bottom-left, 0 to top-left.

That is 0 top-left, 1 top-right, X centre, P bottom-left, W bottom-right — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
This reproduces box 1 exactly. The ring has five slots, so a symbol comes home after five steps — box 1 returns as the sixth frame, not the fifth.
(c)
The top corners are right, but it puts P at the centre. In box 4 P sits at the bottom-right, and a bottom-right symbol moves to the bottom-left, so it cannot reach the centre in one step.
(d)
Everything down to the centre is right, then the bottom pair is swapped. W travels from the centre to the bottom-right and P from the bottom-right to the bottom-left, so W ends on the right and P on the left.

Concept

Symbol-rotation series look crowded because five things move at once. They collapse the moment you track a single symbol across the frames.

Pick whichever symbol is easiest to find — P here — and write down its slot in each box. That trace is the ring, and it is the same ring for every other symbol in the frame.

Once the ring is known, producing the missing box is bookkeeping. List the five positions in box 4, advance each by one slot, and read off the result before you look at the options.

The centre is part of the ring, not a fixed seat. Treating it as a slot that holds one symbol throughout is what makes the series look unsolvable.

Key facts

The ring runs top-left, top-right, centre, bottom-right, bottom-left, then back to top-left.
P is at the top-left in box 1, the top-right in box 2, the centre in box 3 and the bottom-right in box 4.
The ring has five slots, so the whole pattern repeats every five frames.

Study next

Symbol-rotation series where the ring runs through the corners onlySeries in which two symbols move at different speedsFigure series driven by rotating a single element through a fixed angle

Common traps

Assuming a plain clockwise corner rotation and leaving the centre out of the ring.
Reading the ring backwards, which swaps the bottom pair.
Choosing the frame that repeats box 1, since the pattern does return there one step later.

The question mark sits in the last frame, so the rule has to be confirmed on the three earlier steps before it is applied. The same figure-series frame is set at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.15 and at 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.10.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.