SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 1 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. ABC_FG_JK_MOPQ_TUV_Y

(a)DHLRW
(b)DHLSX
(c)EHLRX
(d)EHLRW

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Write A to Y in blocks of five and delete the fourth letter of every block.

Rule: ABCDE FGHIJ KLMNO PQRST UVWXY minus D, I, N, S, X.

What survives is A B C E, F G H J, K L M O, P Q R T, U V W Y.

Drop that into ABC_FG_JK_MOPQ_TUV_Y and the five blanks read E, H, L, R, W — option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
DHLRW — Puts D in the first blank, which restores D to the string. The deleted letters then become E, I, N, S, X, spaced 4 then 5 then 5 then 5 — the fixed step is gone at the very first gap.
(b)
DHLSX — Wrong at three blanks: D for E, S for R and X for W. With S taken, R is the letter deleted at the fourth gap, and the spacing of the deleted letters breaks twice.
(c)
EHLRX — Right for four blanks and wrong at the last. X there leaves W deleted instead, so the removed letters run D, I, N, S, W and the final step is four, not five.

Concept

A blank-filling letter series hides its rule in what is missing, not in what is printed. The move that works is to lay the string out one alphabet slot per position and read off which letters never appear.

Twenty slots here hold fifteen printed letters and five blanks. Complete it correctly and exactly five letters of A to Y are absent: D, I, N, S, X — alphabet positions 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, five apart every time.

Once the spacing is visible the blanks are forced. You are not choosing letters, you are restoring the ones the setter took out.

All four options supply H and L at the second and third blanks, so nothing is decided there. The item turns entirely on the first, fourth and fifth blanks.

Key facts

The completed string is A B C E F G H J K L M O P Q R T U V W Y — A to Y with D, I, N, S and X removed.
D, I, N, S and X sit at alphabet positions 4, 9, 14, 19 and 24, a fixed step of five.
The visible string has fifteen letters and five blanks, twenty positions in all.

Study next

Missing-letter series where the deleted letters, not the printed ones, carry the ruleAlphabet position values A=1 to Z=26, memorised in blocks of fiveRepeating-block letter series, where a short group cycles instead of the alphabet running once

Common traps

Filling blanks so the printed letters merely look continuous, without testing the spacing of the absent letters
Committing once the first two or three blanks match, when H and L are common to all four options
Reading the string as a repeating block when it is one sweep of the alphabet with letters deleted

The instruction 'Select the combination of letters that when sequentially placed in the blanks of the given series will complete the series' also opens Reasoning Q.7 on 24 Sep 2024 (12:30) and Reasoning Q.4 on 24 Sep 2024 (16:00), each with a new string.

The wording is not quite fixed — Reasoning Q.22 on 18 Sep 2024 (16:00) reads 'will logically complete the series'.

The pattern behind the blanks is never carried over, so read each string fresh.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.