SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 6 of 99

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 figure in which the given figure (X) is embedded (rotation is NOT allowed).

Answer

Why

Correct — D.

Figure (X) is a small tree shape with three parts: two arcs meeting at a point, a straight stem dropping from that meeting point, and a solid black triangle at the foot of the stem, apex upward.

Rotation is barred, so (X) has to appear upright and unturned inside the answer figure.

Option (d) carries it. Inside the outer scalloped outline sits a square panel whose top is the same pair of arcs meeting at a point, with the stem running down from that point to the same filled triangle standing on the panel's base line.

Every line of (X) is present, in the same orientation.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) is a jagged star-like outline with two horizontal arrows inside it. It has no filled shape anywhere and no pair of arcs, so it cannot contain (X).
(b)
Option (b) is a tilted heart outline with a long arrow driven through it. Its top is two arcs meeting at a dip, but there is no stem and no filled triangle below them.
(c)
Option (c) is an upright heart crossed by a horizontal chord, with three arrows. The arcs are there again, but the drawing is unfilled throughout and the solid triangle of (X) appears nowhere.

Concept

An embedded-figure item asks whether every line of (X) survives inside a busier drawing. The reliable method is to pick one feature of (X) that is hard to fake and scan the four options for that alone.

Here that feature is the solid black triangle. A filled region is expensive for a setter to disguise, so fill is usually the fastest discriminator on the page.

The rider rotation is NOT allowed tightens the test further: the feature must appear the same way up. You may not turn an option to make the fit work.

Three of the four options are outline drawings with arrows and no fill at all, so the filled triangle settles the item before any tracing is needed.

Key facts

Figure (X) has three parts: a pair of arcs meeting at a point, a vertical stem, and a filled triangle.
The filled black triangle appears in option (d) and in none of the other three options.
When rotation is barred, a match must line up in the same orientation as the given figure.

Study next

Embedded figures where rotation IS allowed, so the tracing has to be turned before comparingComplete-the-figure items, where a piece is missing rather than hiddenComposite line drawings read for counting rather than for a hidden shape

Common traps

Matching on the pair of arcs alone, which a heart outline also supplies.
Allowing yourself a small rotation to make a near fit work when the stem bars it.

The stem states plainly whether rotation is allowed, and that rider changes the method rather than decorating it. Composite line drawings are also read at Reasoning Q.22 in this shift, there for counting triangles.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.