SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 2 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 the question mark (?) will logically complete the series?

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Rule: each mark moves one place along a fixed loop — top-left, then top-right, then the centre, then bottom-right, then back to top-left.

Follow the L. It is top-left in frame 1, top-right in frame 2, at the centre in frame 3 and bottom-right in frame 4. A four-step loop brings it back to the top-left in frame 5.

The other three marks travel the same loop, so frame 5 must repeat frame 1: L top-left, asterisk top-right, exclamation mark at the centre, small square bottom-right.

Option (c) is the frame that shows exactly that arrangement.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) puts the small square at the centre and drops the asterisk into the bottom-left corner, a slot the four given frames never use. In frame 5 the square belongs at the bottom-right.
(b)
Option (b) keeps L at the top-left and the exclamation mark at the centre, but sends the asterisk to the bottom-right. After a full loop the asterisk is due back at the top-right.
(d)
Option (d) restarts the loop in the wrong place: L sits at the top-right, the slot it occupied in frame 2. Four steps return L to the top-left, not one step.

Concept

A frame carrying four marks in four fixed slots is a positional rotation, not a shape puzzle. Nothing is added, removed or redrawn — the same four marks reappear every time.

So ignore what the marks look like and record where each one sits. Name the slots, pick one mark, and read its slot across the frames.

The length of the loop decides the answer. Here the loop is four slots long and four frames are given, so the fifth frame is a copy of the first.

The slots in play are top-left, top-right, centre and bottom-right. The bottom-left corner stays empty across all four given frames, which is quicker to check than tracking every mark.

Key facts

A rotation series repeats once the marks have travelled the whole loop.
A four-slot loop means the fifth frame is identical to the first.
Here the marks travel top-left, top-right, centre, bottom-right, then round again.

Study next

Figure series where one element rotates while the others stay fixedSeries in which the count of shaded cells grows by a constant each frameMatrix-completion figures, where a rule runs across rows and down columns

Common traps

Tracking the marks by shape instead of by slot, which is slower and easy to muddle
Forgetting that a four-step loop closes, so the fifth frame simply repeats the first
Accepting an option that fills the bottom-left corner, which the given frames leave empty

SSC gives four framed figures and a fifth left blank, and the rule here is positional rather than about the shapes themselves.

The same instruction wording appears at 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.13, and the sibling phrasing 'can replace the question mark' at 09 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.8.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.