SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 20 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 24 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.

If 'COW' is coded as '3-15-23', how will 'WOC' be coded?

(a)18-7-5
(b)23-15-3
(c)16-24-25
(d)8-6-11

Answer

Why

Correct — B.
Rule: each letter is coded by its alphabet position (A = 1 … Z = 26).

C = 3, O = 15, W = 23 gives 3-15-23, as printed.

WOC is the same letters reversed:
W = 23, O = 15, C = 3 → 23-15-3, option (b)

Why the others are wrong

(a)
18-7-5 — 18-7-5 decodes to R, G, E. None of its numbers is 23, 15 or 3, the positions of the letters in WOC.
(c)
16-24-25 — 16-24-25 decodes to P, X, Y. By the rule from COW, W is 23 and C is 3, so the code must start with 23 and end with 3.
(d)
8-6-11 — 8-6-11 decodes to H, F, K. A code for WOC must reuse the numbers of COW, 3, 15 and 23, in reverse order.

Concept

The plainest letter code writes each letter as its alphabet position. Check the rule on the given word first: C is the 3rd letter, O the 15th, W the 23rd.

Because the code works letter by letter, reversing the word reverses the code. WOC needs no new working: read 3-15-23 backwards.

The code reverses cleanly because each number depends on one letter alone. In a code that also uses a letter's place in the word, reversing the word would not simply reverse the code.

Key facts

C = 3, O = 15, W = 23.
A letter-by-letter code reverses when the word is reversed.
A letter's reverse position is 27 minus its position, so W is 4th from the end.

Study next

Reverse-position codes, where A = 26 and Z = 1Codes that add a fixed number to each positionCodes built on the sum of letter positions

Common traps

Recomputing each letter and slipping on one position, when the answer is the given code read backwards.
Using reverse positions (A = 26) though the example uses forward ones.

The same reversal is set at 23 Sep 2025, 09:00, Reasoning Q.22 (TIGER is 20-9-7-5-18, so REGIT is 18-5-7-9-20) and at 23 Sep 2025, 16:00, Reasoning Q.19 (FISH is 6-9-19-8, so HSIF is 8-19-9-6).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Coding & de-coding — all 138 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.