SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 15 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 1 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.

Sentence: "The quantum universe expands silently into infinity."If the 3rd letter of every 2nd word is written in order, what word is formed?

(a)tufe
(b)tule
(c)apf
(d)apt

Answer

Why

Correct — D.
Rule: take every 2nd word, then the 3rd letter of each.

The seven words: The, quantum, universe, expands, silently, into, infinity.
Every 2nd word: quantum, expands, into.
3rd letters: a (qua), p (exp), t (int).

Written in order: apt → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
tufe — tufe has four letters, but only three words sit in 2nd, 4th and 6th place: quantum, expands, into. It also starts with t, while the 3rd letter of quantum is a.
(b)
tule — tule also has four letters, one more than three picked words can give. Its first letter is wrong too: the first pick is quantum, whose 3rd letter is a.
(c)
apf — apf ends with the 3rd letter of infinity, the 7th word. The 6th word is into, and its 3rd letter is t.

Concept

A letter-picking question has two counts: which words, then which letter inside each word. Settle the words first. Every 2nd word means the 2nd, 4th, 6th and so on, until the sentence ends.

Then count inside each chosen word from its own first letter, and write the picks in sentence order. The question says "in order", so the letters are not rearranged.

The last word, infinity, stands 7th, an odd place, so it is never picked. The last pick is into, the 6th word.

Key facts

Every 2nd word of a seven-word sentence: the 2nd, 4th and 6th words.
Here those are quantum, expands and into.
Their 3rd letters, a, p and t, spell apt.

Study next

Letters picked from fixed positions in the words of a sentenceCounting word positions from the right-hand end of a sentenceLetter positions after a word's letters are arranged alphabetically

Common traps

Starting the count at The and picking the odd-numbered words
Running on to infinity and ending with f, as option (c) does

15 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.1 also counts word positions in a printed sentence: the 2nd last word of "Technology is advancing very rapidly", keyed very (c).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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