SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 6 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 figure in which the given figure (X) is embedded (rotation is NOT allowed).

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Figure (X) is one continuous line: a straight horizontal line with three teardrop loops hanging below it, each loop joined to the next by a small arc that rises back to the line, and a plain straight tail at either end.

Two features fix it. The carrier line is straight, and the loops point downwards.

Option (c) carries exactly that motif. Inside its circle a horizontal chord runs from rim to rim, three loops hang beneath it in a row, the small arcs rise between them, and a straight tail reaches the circle on each side.

Same shape, same size, same way up — so (X) sits embedded in it with no turning at all.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) hangs its loops from an arched line rather than a straight one, and only two loops sit on it. Bending the carrier changes the figure, and (X) may not be bent to fit.
(b)
Option (b) runs its three loops down a near-vertical line, so the loops point sideways. That is (X) turned on its side, and the stem forbids rotation.
(d)
Option (d) has the straight horizontal line and three loops, but the loops stand above the line with the arcs dipping between them. That is (X) upside down, not (X) as given.

Concept

An embedded-figure item asks whether the small figure appears inside an option complete, unbroken, and at the same size and angle.

The instruction 'rotation is NOT allowed' removes the usual escape route: you may not turn an option to make it fit.

Work from features that survive being buried among extra lines. For a curved motif like this one, two features decide everything — whether the carrier line is straight or curved, and which side the loops sit on.

Those two checks alone separate the four options here.

All four options draw their motif inside a circle crossed by other lines, so the surrounding lines are noise. Only the carrier line and the loop direction do any work.

Key facts

Figure (X) is a straight horizontal line carrying three loops that hang below it.
'Rotation is NOT allowed' means the embedded copy must stand at the same angle as (X).
An upside-down copy is not the figure as given, so it does not count as embedded.

Study next

Embedded figures where rotation IS allowed, and how the wording changes the workCompleting an incomplete pattern from a part figureMirror images and water images of line figures

Common traps

Turning an option in your head anyway, when this stem forbids it.
Accepting an upside-down copy of the motif as a match.
Counting loops and stopping there, when three of the four options carry three loops.

Picture reasoning also runs at Reasoning Q.10, a pattern completion (9 Sep 2024, 16:00).

Both are settled by naming two or three decisive features first, rather than comparing whole pictures.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.