SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 16 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.

Select the figure from among the given options that can replace the question mark (?) and logically complete the series.

Answer

Why

Correct — C.
Rule: the small circle steps 45 degrees clockwise round the diamond, and the diamond gains two more spokes each frame.

Circle: top-left, then top, then top-right, then right. The next stop clockwise is the bottom-right.

Spokes from the centre: 0, then 2 (the vertical), then 4 (vertical and horizontal), then 6. Frame five therefore carries 8 spokes, the full asterisk — and all four option figures draw exactly that diamond.

So the circle decides it, and option (c) is the one that places it at the bottom-right.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) drops the circle at the bottom-left, three 45-degree steps on instead of one. The first four frames fix the step size.
(b)
Option (b) returns the circle to the top-left, exactly where frame 1 had it. That restarts the cycle rather than continuing it.
(d)
Option (d) places the circle directly below the diamond, a 90-degree jump. Every earlier move was 45 degrees.

Concept

A figure series usually runs two or more attributes at once, and they change independently. Isolate them before comparing whole pictures.

Here one attribute is a satellite element — the circle orbiting the diamond in 45-degree steps. The other is accumulation — spokes being added to the diamond, two per frame, until the asterisk is complete.

When one attribute reaches its ceiling, as the spokes do at eight, the options stop differing on it and the remaining attribute becomes the whole question.

Counting spokes is the safer route than eyeballing the diamond: at this size the added lines are thin, and frames 4 and 5 look almost identical until you count from the centre outwards.

Key facts

The circle takes eight positions around the diamond, one every 45 degrees.
The diamond gains two spokes per frame, running 0, 2, 4, 6 and then 8.
All four option figures carry the same eight-spoke diamond, so only the circle's position separates them.

Study next

Series where one element rotates while another accumulatesCounting elements rather than matching whole figures by eyeSeries in which a shading or a dot moves round a fixed frame

Common traps

Reading the circle's motion as 90 degrees per frame because the hops look like corner-to-corner moves
Comparing whole option figures at a glance instead of one attribute at a time

SSC prints this stem verbatim — Select the figure from among the given options that can replace the question mark (?) and logically complete the series — and it is also used at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.8.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.