SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 19 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 option that represents the letters that when sequentially placed from left to right in the blanks below will complete the letter series. _ P _ J _ P _ P _ _ P _

(a)JPPJPJP
(b)JPJPJPJ
(c)PPJJJJJ
(d)JJPPPPJ

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Number the twelve places. P is printed at places 2, 6, 8 and 11, and J at place 4.

Rule: the three-letter group J P P repeats to fill all twelve places.

J P P | J P P | J P P | J P P covers places 1 to 12, putting J at 1, 4, 7 and 10 and P everywhere else, which agrees with all five printed letters.

The blanks are places 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12.

Reading the filled series at those places gives J, P, P, J, P, J, P — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
JPJPJPJ — This puts J at place 5, immediately after the J already printed at place 4. The repeating block carries a single J, so two of them never stand side by side.
(c)
PPJJJJJ — It opens with P at place 1. The printed J at place 4 fixes where the blocks start — 1, 4, 7 and 10 — so place 1 has to be J.
(d)
JJPPPPJ — It ends with J at place 12. Place 12 is the last letter of the fourth block, and each block runs J P P, so that place is P.

Concept

A blank-filling letter series is a periodic pattern with holes in it. The printed letters are the constraint; find the period and the rest follows.

Count the places first, then read the gaps between the printed letters. P at 2, 6, 8 and 11 and J at 4 are all satisfied by a period of three.

Write the complete filled string out before you look at the options, then lift the blanks from it in order. Matching an option straight against the gaps is where the slips happen.

The options list the blanks only, in order, so an option's seventh letter belongs to place 12 of the series, not to place 7.

Key facts

The series has twelve places: seven blank and five printed.
The repeating block is J P P, which puts J at places 1, 4, 7 and 10.
The blanks fall at places 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10 and 12, two of them adjacent.

Study next

Blank-filling series with a period of three or four lettersUsing one printed letter to fix where the repeating block beginsSeries with two adjacent blanks, as at places 9 and 10 here

Common traps

Filling the blanks left to right by feel instead of finding the period first.
Miscounting the places, which shifts every later letter by one.
Matching an option on its first three letters and never checking its last.

A letter series also runs at Reasoning Q.24 of this shift, but as three columns each moving by its own step rather than as a repeating block. Decide which of the two shapes you are looking at before you start.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.