SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 19 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.

In a certain code If 'FISH' is coded as '6-9-19-8', how will 'HSIF' be coded?

(a)8-19-9-6
(b)15-22-18-3
(c)8-8-19-10
(d)4-12-5-7

Answer

Why

Correct — A.
Rule: each letter becomes its position in the alphabet (A = 1 … Z = 26).

FISH: F = 6, I = 9, S = 19, H = 8 → 6-9-19-8, as given.

HSIF is FISH written backwards, so its code is the same numbers backwards:
H = 8, S = 19, I = 9, F = 6 → 8-19-9-6 → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
15-22-18-3 — It opens with 15, but H is the 8th letter. None of its numbers (O, V, R, C) is a letter of HSIF.
(c)
8-8-19-10 — H = 8 is right, but the second letter is S = 19, not 8. The last number, 10, is J, a letter HSIF does not contain.
(d)
4-12-5-7 — It fails at once: 4 is D, while HSIF begins with H = 8. The numbers spell D, L, E, G.

Concept

A letter-to-number code replaces each letter with its alphabet position. Once one word confirms the rule, any word can be coded letter by letter.

Here the new word is the old word reversed, so you do not even need to recount: reverse the order of the numbers.

Positions come fastest from anchors: E = 5, J = 10, O = 15, T = 20, Y = 25. S is one before T, so 19. H is two before J, so 8.

Key facts

F = 6, H = 8, I = 9 and S = 19 in the English alphabet.
Reversing a word reverses the order of its position code.
E, J, O, T and Y sit at positions 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25.

Study next

Reverse-alphabet position codes, where A = 26 and Z = 1Codes that add a constant to each letter's positionCodes that write the sum of a word's letter positions

Common traps

Stopping after checking the first number: option (c) also starts with 8.

20 Sep 2025, 09:00, Reasoning Q.24 codes COW as 3-15-23 and asks for WOC, keyed 23-15-3.

23 Sep 2025, 09:00, Reasoning Q.22 does the same with TIGER (20-9-7-5-18) and REGIT, keyed 18-5-7-9-20.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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