SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 10 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 10 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 ? will logically complete the series.

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Rule: a letter enters at the centre, then steps clockwise round the corners — top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left — and leaves.

Follow T: centre in box 1, top-left in box 2, top-right in box 3, bottom-right in box 4, so bottom-left in box 5.

K entered the centre one box later, so it trails T by one station and lands at bottom-right.

S entered later still and stands at top-left in box 4, so it moves to top-right. D entered the centre in box 4, so it takes top-left.

Box 5 reads D and S across the top, T and K across the bottom, with the new letter R at the centre — option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) swaps both pairs, putting S at top-left with D at top-right, and K at bottom-left with T at bottom-right. D entered the centre most recently, so top-left is D's slot.
(b)
Option (b) gets the bottom pair right but reverses the top. S already served its turn at top-left in box 4 and must move on to top-right.
(c)
Option (c) gets the top pair right but reverses the bottom. T reached bottom-right in box 4, and the next station clockwise is bottom-left, so T cannot stay on the right.

Concept

Letter-position series like this have nothing to do with the alphabet. D, S, R, T and K form no sequence — they are tokens, and the question is where each token goes.

Pick one letter and follow it across all four given boxes. That single trace reveals the whole route, and every other letter then follows the same route offset by a box or two.

Here the route is the centre first, then the four corners clockwise, then out of the frame. A fresh letter joins at the centre in every box, so the set of five keeps changing.

The centre letter of box 5 is R in all four options, so it never has to be derived. That leaves the four corners as the thing worth checking, and one letter's trace decides them.

Key facts

The route is centre, top-left, top-right, bottom-right, bottom-left, then out of the frame.
T appears in every box from box 1 to box 5, because the route is five stations long.
Each box drops the letter that finished at bottom-left and admits a fresh letter at the centre.

Study next

Symbol-position series, where shapes and arrows replace letters on the same kind of routeSeries where two elements swap along a diagonal instead of travelling a cycleMatrix items in which a whole row shifts one place per step

Common traps

Hunting for an alphabet rule in D, S, R, T and K, which have none.
Tracing a letter that leaves the frame early, such as J or L, and losing the route.
Reading the corner order anticlockwise, which reverses the bottom pair.

Reasoning Q.11 of this shift is the same puzzle with five symbols instead of letters — a square, a circle, a triangle and a pair of arrows — though the route round the corners there runs the other way.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.