SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 9 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.

The position of how many letters will remain unchanged if each of the letter in the word ‘IMPROVE’ is arranged in English alphabetical order?

(a)One
(b)Three
(c)Two
(d)Zero

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Write the word out, write its sorted letters underneath, and compare slot against slot.

IMPROVE is I M P R O V E.
Sorted alphabetically it is E I M O P R V.

Slot 1 I against E, slot 2 M against I, slot 3 P against M, slot 4 R against O
Slot 5 O against P, slot 6 V against R, slot 7 E against V

No slot holds the same letter before and after the sort, so the count is zero — option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
One — One is the tally a mis-sort produces. Put I first because the word begins with I and slot 1 seems to hold — but E, not I, is the earliest letter in IMPROVE.
(b)
Three — Three overcounts by accepting near misses. Slots 4 and 5 pair R with O and O with P, and a letter must be identical to its sorted counterpart, not merely close to it.
(c)
Two — Two is the tally if you assume both ends stay put. Neither does: slot 1 holds I against E, and slot 7 holds E against V.

Concept

This format asks how many fixed points a word has once its letters are sorted alphabetically. Do it mechanically.

Write the word in one row, its sorted letters directly beneath, and compare column by column. Count exact matches, never near ones.

A letter keeps its slot only when every letter standing before it in the word also stands before it in the alphabet. In IMPROVE that fails at the very first slot, because E — the earliest letter present — is sitting at the end of the word.

Nothing repeats in IMPROVE, so the sort is unambiguous. When a word does repeat a letter, sort the copies together and the same column comparison still works.

Key facts

IMPROVE sorted alphabetically is E I M O P R V.
A letter keeps its slot only if every letter before it in the word also precedes it alphabetically.
The comparison is slot against slot, not letter against anywhere in the sorted string.

Study next

The same count taken on the reverse alphabet, from Z down to AItems asking which letter moves the greatest number of places under the sortAlphabetical ranking of whole words, which applies the same ordering rule one level up

Common traps

Sorting by eye and mislaying E, the letter furthest from its sorted home.
Counting a letter as fixed because it appears in the sorted string at all.
Reading the question as how many letters move, which is the complement of what is asked.

The same format is used with SIGNATURE at 24 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.13, with DOWNSIZE at 25 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.2, and with SPIDER at 26 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.12.

The first two say the letters are re-arranged from left to right; the task is the same either way.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.