SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 1 of 95

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.

Which letter in the word "TREATMENT" is equidistant from both ends?

(a)A
(b)T
(c)E
(d)M

Answer

Why

Correct — B.
Rule: the letter equidistant from both ends is the middle letter, with equal counts on each side.

TREATMENT has 9 letters: T R E A T M E N T.
Middle position = (9 + 1) ÷ 2 = 5th.
The 5th letter is T, with 4 letters on each side → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
A — A is the 4th letter: 3 letters stand to its left and 5 to its right. Equal counts on both sides need the 5th letter.
(c)
E — E stands 3rd from the left and 3rd from the right, but those are two different E's. Each has unequal sides: the 3rd letter has 2 on its left and 6 on its right.
(d)
M — M is the 6th letter: 5 letters to its left and 3 to its right. It sits one place past the middle.

Concept

Position questions turn a word into numbered slots. In a word of odd length n, the letter with equal counts on both sides sits at position (n + 1) ÷ 2.

Check it from both ends: 5th from the left of TREATMENT is T, and 5th from the right (9 − 5 + 1 = 5) is the same T. A word of even length has no such letter, because its middle falls between two letters.

TREATMENT holds three T's and two E's. Only the T in 5th place is equidistant: the T's at positions 1 and 9 are the ends themselves, and the E's at 3 and 7 mirror each other without either being in the middle.

Key facts

TREATMENT by position: T1 R2 E3 A4 T5 M6 E7 N8 T9.
Middle position of an odd-length word = (n + 1) ÷ 2, so 5 for nine letters.
The kth letter from the right is the (n − k + 1)th from the left.

Study next

The kth letter from the right of a word: position n − k + 1 from the leftLetters that keep their position when a word is rearranged alphabeticallyCounting the letters between two positions of an alphabetically sorted word

Common traps

Picking E because an E stands 3rd from each end: that is two separate letters, not one letter in the middle
Counting five from one end and landing one place off, on A or M

The stem prints a nine-letter word in quotes and offers single letters. Two of the options, T and E, occur more than once in the word, so the item rewards counting positions rather than spotting repeats.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Indexing — all 53 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.