SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 16 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 6 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 option that represents the letters that when placed from left to right in the blanks below will complete the letter series. L_P_QS_K_P_S_KP_Q_L_ _PQS

(a)KPLPLQLSPK
(b)PKLPQPLSKP
(c)KPLPQQLPSK
(d)KPLPQLPSKP

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Write the printed string out with its ten blanks marked:
L _ P _ Q S _ K _ P _ S _ K P _ Q _ L _ _ P Q S

That is 24 places, and 24 splits neatly into four groups of six.

Rule: the unit LKPPQS is written four times.

Feeding K, P, L, P, Q, L, P, S, K, P into the blanks in order gives
LKPPQS LKPPQS LKPPQS LKPPQS.

Only KPLPQLPSKP produces that, so the answer is option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
KPLPLQLSPK — The first group comes out right, but the fifth blank takes L where Q is needed, so the second group reads LKPPLS and the repeat is broken.
(b)
PKLPQPLSKP — It opens with P in the very first blank, making the string begin L P P instead of L K P. The block fails before the first group is finished.
(c)
KPLPQQLPSK — Two groups come out right, then the sixth blank takes Q where L is needed, so the third group starts Q K P P and the pattern collapses.

Concept

A blank-filling letter series is a repeating block with holes punched in it. The whole question is finding the block length.

Count the total number of places first, blanks included. A total of 24 invites blocks of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 or 12, and the visible letters usually rule out all but one.

Here the fragment K P appears at places 14 and 15 and again as P Q S at the tail, which points to a six-letter block, and LKPPQS is the only six-letter block the given letters allow.

Key facts

The completed string is LKPPQS written four times, which is 6 multiplied by 4, or 24 letters.
There are ten blanks, so a valid option must contain exactly ten letters.
All four options here are ten letters long, so length alone eliminates none of them.

Study next

Blank-filling series in which the block itself grows, such as AB, ABB, ABBBSeries where the blanks are filled from a set of options given as a jumbled string rather than in orderIdentifying block length from the total count of places before looking at any option

Common traps

Filling the blanks with an option letter by letter but losing count of which blank you are on
Guessing the block from the first four or five letters instead of counting the whole string
Overlooking that a wrong option can match the first group perfectly and fail only later

SSC prints the string without spaces, so transcribing it onto the rough sheet with the blanks separated is the first real step.

The options are always the same length as the number of blanks, which means the check is always positional and never about length.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.