SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 11 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 option figure that when put in place of the question mark (?) will logically complete the series.

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Rule: every symbol steps one station along centre, top-left, bottom-left, bottom-right, top-right, back to the centre.

Check it on the square: centre in box 1, top-left in box 2, bottom-left in box 3, bottom-right in box 4 — so top-right in box 5.

Box 4 reads circle top-left, up-arrow top-right, triangle centre, down-arrow bottom-left, square bottom-right.

Advance each by one station: triangle to top-left, square to top-right, up-arrow to the centre, circle to bottom-left, down-arrow to bottom-right.

That arrangement is option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) holds the square at bottom-right, where box 4 already had it, and jumps the down-arrow to top-right. Every symbol must advance exactly one station.
(b)
Option (b) leaves the circle at top-left, its box-4 seat, and drops the triangle at bottom-left. The circle's next station is bottom-left and the triangle's is top-left, so the two are exchanged.
(d)
Option (d) sends the circle to the centre and the up-arrow to bottom-left. Not one of its five symbols sits where a single step along the route puts it.

Concept

Symbol-position series test movement, not meaning. The square, the circle, the triangle and the two arrows carry no value — what matters is the seat each occupies.

Trace one symbol across the four given frames and you have the route for all of them, because every symbol travels the same closed loop and none overtakes another.

The loop has five stations and there are five symbols, so the arrangement returns to its starting layout every fifth frame. Nothing enters and nothing leaves — the frame simply rotates its contents along a fixed path.

In the letter version at Reasoning Q.10 of this shift a fresh letter enters each frame and an old one drops out. Here no symbol ever leaves, so the same five recur throughout and an option showing a new shape would be wrong on sight.

Key facts

The route is centre, top-left, bottom-left, bottom-right, top-right, back to the centre.
Five symbols on a five-station loop means the whole arrangement repeats every fifth frame.
The triangle holds the centre in box 4, so the triangle takes the top-left in box 5.

Study next

Series where symbols move different distances per step rather than one station eachGrid rotations, where the frame itself turns 90 degrees instead of its contents movingSeries that add or drop a symbol each frame, so the count is itself the pattern

Common traps

Assuming the route matches the letter version at Reasoning Q.10, which runs the corners the other way.
Tracking the arrows as a pair, when the up-arrow and the down-arrow move independently.
Deciding on the centre symbol alone, which three of the four options place correctly.

The letter form of the same idea sits at Reasoning Q.10 of this shift, with a new letter entering at the centre in every frame and an old one leaving.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.