SSC CGL 2025 Tier-II · Paper-I, 19 January 2026 · Reasoning and General Intelligence · Question 24 of 150

We transcribed this text from the pictures of a candidate's response sheet for this paper; the answer is the key SSC marked with a green tick on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. This paper reaches us as a candidate's response sheet saved as pictures, so we transcribed the text from those pictures, and a second reader checked every question against them; where the layout carries meaning, we show the picture too. Each answer is the key SSC marked with a green tick 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. UnlockIAS wrote the solutions.

Select the option in which the given figure is embedded. (Rotation is not allowed)

Answer

Why

Correct — C.
Rule: the figure must sit inside the option at the same size and the same way up — no turning.

The given figure is an M standing on a line: two uprights, with slanting sides running from their tops down to one point on the line, midway. The line runs on past both uprights.

Option (c) is two touching diamonds, each with a vertical diagonal, and a horizontal line across the middle.

The upper halves of those diagonals are the uprights. The diamonds' upper inner edges slope down to the touching point: the V. The middle line is the base → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Figure (a) — Option (a) has only one vertical line, on its left. The M needs two uprights, so it cannot sit in this figure.
(b)
Figure (b) — Option (b) has the base, both uprights and the left slope, but no line rising from the touching point to the top of the right upright. The slant on that side runs from the left diamond's top to the right diamond's centre.
(d)
Figure (d) — Option (d) has no vertical line at all. Every line in it is horizontal or slanting, so the M's two uprights have nowhere to sit.

Concept

An embedded-figure item hides the given figure inside a busier one. It must appear with the same shape, size and orientation, and this stem also bars rotation.

Test the options for the given figure's most distinctive feature first. Here that is the pair of uprights: an option with fewer than two vertical lines is out, which removes (a) and (d) before you look any further.

On the response sheet in circulation, the source of the option pictures, the left half of option (c)'s middle line has faded almost to nothing. The dot where it crosses the left diamond's vertical diagonal survives, and the M needs that line as its base.

Key facts

The given figure needs two vertical lines, two slanting lines meeting at one point, and a horizontal line through that point.
Option (a) has one vertical line and option (d) has none, so both are out at once.
In option (c) the M sits in the upper half, its point where the two diamonds touch.

Study next

Counting triangles and squares in a composite figureCompleting a figure from a missing pieceMirror images of line figures

Common traps

Fitting the M upside down into the lower half of the diamonds, which rotation rules out
Accepting option (b) because it has the base, both uprights and one slope, when every line must be there

The same task, with rotation barred, is set at 9 Sep 2024, 16:00, Reasoning Q.6 and 17 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.3.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Embedded Figures — all 54 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.