SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 1 of 75

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.

Italy is a beautiful village and China is a big building. What is the total number of words that begin with a consonant?

(a)4
(b)5
(c)6
(d)7

Answer

Why

Correct — B.
Rule: look only at the first letter of each word. A, E, I, O and U are vowels, every other letter is a consonant.

Vowel starts: Italy, is, a, and, is, a.
Consonant starts: beautiful, village, China, big, building.

Count the consonant starts: 5 → option (b).
Check: 6 vowel starts + 5 = 11, every word of the sentence.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
4 — 4 is one short. Recount word by word: beautiful, village, China, big and building all begin with a consonant, and the capital C of China counts like any other C.
(c)
6 — 6 is the number of words that begin with a vowel: Italy, is, a, and, is, a. The question asks for consonant starts, and there are five.
(d)
7 — 7 is more consonant starts than the sentence holds. Six of its 11 words begin with I or A, which leaves five for the consonants.

Concept

A word-count item hands you a sentence and asks how many of its words start with one kind of letter. Meaning and spelling do not matter, only the first letter of each word.

Write the words out in order and tag each one V or C. A capital changes nothing: China starts with C, a consonant, and Italy with I, a vowel. The two tallies must add up to the total number of words, a free check on your count.

The sentence makes no factual sense (Italy is not a village), and nothing depends on its meaning. Read it as a plain list of eleven words.

Key facts

The sentence has 11 words: 6 begin with a vowel and 5 with a consonant.
The vowels are A, E, I, O and U. Every other letter of the alphabet is a consonant.
A capital letter does not change the class: C in China is a consonant, I in Italy a vowel.

Study next

Counting consonants between two letter positions in a single wordCounting vowels in a word after each letter is shifted by a rule

Common traps

Answering 6, the vowel count, after tallying the wrong group
Skipping a capitalised name such as China, which still begins with a consonant

A consonant count inside one word, between the 2nd and 7th letters of TECHNOLOGY, appears at 16 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.1.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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