SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 2 · 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.

We doubt SSC's key on this question.

Read strictly, the letters between the 2nd (E) and 7th (L) letters are C, H, N and O, which hold three consonants (option a); the key's 4 is reached only by counting the 7th letter L as well.

The answer below is still the option SSC's key marks, and we solve to that option.

Count consonants between the 2nd and 7th letter of TECHNOLOGY.

(a)3
(b)4
(c)5
(d)6

Answer

Why

Correct — B.
Rule: count from the 2nd letter to the 7th, both ends included, the reading the key takes.

Number the word: T(1) E(2) C(3) H(4) N(5) O(6) L(7) O(8) G(9) Y(10).
Letters 2 to 7: E, C, H, N, O, L.
Drop the vowels E and O.
Consonants left: C, H, N, L = 4 → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
3 — 3 is the count when both end letters are left out: C, H, N, O hold three consonants. The key also counts the 7th letter L, which makes 4.
(c)
5 — 5 needs one more consonant than the stretch holds. Even with both ends counted, E, C, H, N, O, L carries two vowels, so four consonants is the most it gives.
(d)
6 — 6 counts every letter from the 2nd to the 7th. Two of those six, E and O, are vowels.

Concept

A position-count item asks you to number the letters of a word, mark off a stretch, and count one kind of letter inside it. Write the positions under the letters before counting anything.

The decision that changes the answer is whether 'between' includes the end letters. The 2nd letter is E, a vowel, so including it changes nothing. The 7th letter is L, a consonant, so including it adds one.

Taken strictly, 'between' leaves out both end letters, and C, H, N, O hold three consonants. The key's 4 counts the 7th letter L as well, so this card works the inclusive count and records the disagreement.

Key facts

TECHNOLOGY numbered: T1 E2 C3 H4 N5 O6 L7 O8 G9 Y10.
The five vowels are A, E, I, O and U.
Positions 2 to 7, ends included, give E, C, H, N, O, L: four consonants.
Positions 3 to 6, ends left out, give C, H, N, O: three consonants.

Study next

Counting letters between two positions, one taken from the left and one from the rightLetters between two letters of the alphabet, counted with the ends left outVowel and consonant counts after a word is rearranged

Common traps

Settling what 'between' means only after seeing which count appears among the options
Counting the vowels E and O along with the consonants

Here SSC asks for a count inside a stretch of one word, and the key's count includes the 7th letter.

At 12 Sep 2025, 09:00, Reasoning Q.9, 'between' works the other way: from E to S in the alphabet the key counts 13 letters, leaving both E and S out.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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