SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 15 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Find the odd one out from the given alternatives:

(a)TDS
(b)GST
(c)VAT
(d)DNA

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Expand each abbreviation before looking for any letter pattern.

Rule: three are tax terms; one is not.

TDS = Tax Deducted at Source.
GST = Goods and Services Tax.
VAT = Value Added Tax.

DNA = deoxyribonucleic acid, the molecule that carries genetic information. So DNA, option (d), is the odd one out.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
TDS — TDS, Tax Deducted at Source, is income tax taken out when certain payments, such as salary, are made. It is a tax term, like GST and VAT.
(b)
GST — GST, Goods and Services Tax, is India's tax on the supply of goods and services, in force since 1 July 2017. It belongs to the tax group.
(c)
VAT — VAT, Value Added Tax, taxes the value added at each stage of sale. Like TDS and GST, it is a tax, so it stays in the group.

Concept

This is a meaning-based classification. The four items look like letter clusters, but they are abbreviations, and the grouping comes from what they stand for.

Expand all four first. TDS, GST and VAT each name a tax, which is why each contains a T. DNA is a term from biology, so it stands outside the group.

Letter arithmetic can mislead here. GST happens to run in alphabetical order (G, S, T), and none of TDS, VAT or DNA does. The key follows meaning instead: three taxes and one biology term.

Key facts

TDS = Tax Deducted at Source.
GST = Goods and Services Tax, in force in India from 1 July 2017.
VAT = Value Added Tax.
DNA = deoxyribonucleic acid, the carrier of genetic information.

Study next

Odd-one-out by meaning: sets of abbreviations, units or peopleCommon economy abbreviations such as GST, TDS and VAT, expanded in fullTelling a meaning-based odd-one-out from a letter-position one

Common traps

Hunting for a letter rule and picking GST because G, S, T run in alphabetical order.
Doubting TDS because it is a way of collecting income tax rather than a separate tax. It is still a tax term.

A meaning-based odd-one-out is also set at 15 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.15, where C. V. Raman, a physicist, stands apart from Bhagat Singh, Sardar Patel, Mahatma Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Semantic Classification — all 59 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.