SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 7 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.

Select the combination of letters that when sequentially placed in the blanks of the given series will complete the series. LM_O_NPMRO_KU_TI

(a)RPMO
(b)PNOR
(c)NORP
(d)NOPR

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Rule: the 16 characters lay out as four rows of four, and each column is its own alphabet progression.

L M _ O
_ N P M
R O _ K
U _ T I

Column 1: L(12), ?, R(18), U(21) — +3 each, so the blank is O.
Column 2: M(13), N(14), O(15), ? — +1 each, so the blank is P.
Column 3: ?, P(16), ?, T(20) — +2 each, so the blanks are N and R.
Column 4: O(15), M(13), K(11), I(9) — -2 each, already complete.

Read the four blanks in the order the series prints them and you get N, O, R, P — option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
RPMO — Putting R in the first blank wrecks column 3, which has to read N, P, R, T. R above P would make that column fall before it rises.
(b)
PNOR — P in the first blank puts two P's in column 3, and a column stepping by a fixed gap cannot repeat a letter.
(d)
NOPR — The first two blanks are right and then P and R are exchanged: column 3 needs R in its third row and column 2 needs P in its fourth.

Concept

A blank-filling letter series can hide its rule in a grid rather than in a straight left-to-right reading, so counting the characters is the first move. Sixteen characters lay out as four rows of four.

Once the letters sit in a grid, each column runs its own arithmetic progression on alphabet positions. Here the four columns step +3, +1, +2 and -2.

Filling the blanks is then ordinary series work, one column at a time, and the options only have to be checked against letters you have already derived.

The options list the blanks in the order the series prints them, left to right, not column by column. Fill the grid first, then read the blanks off in printing order.

Key facts

The series carries 16 characters, which lay out as a 4 by 4 grid.
Down the columns the alphabet steps are +3, +1, +2 and -2.
Alphabet positions used here: I=9, K=11, L=12, M=13, N=14, O=15, P=16, R=18, T=20, U=21.

Study next

Letter series that resolve into a grid rather than a single left-to-right runRepeating-block letter series, in which a fixed group of letters cyclesAlphabet position arithmetic worked forwards and backwards

Common traps

Reading all 16 characters as one sequence and hunting for a single step.
Filling the blanks column by column and then reporting them in that order rather than in print order.
Choosing option (d), which carries the same four letters as the key with the last two exchanged.

The same instruction with a differently shaped series appears at 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.14 (P _ A A _ _ Z A _ V _ _ A _ _) and at 11 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.10, which runs on just three letters, q, p and r.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.