General Aptitude and Reasoning
Aptitude questions measure how you think, not what you have memorized. Expect series completion, analogies, syllogisms, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, and logical deduction. Speed with accuracy is the goal, so learn to recognize question types instantly.
Core concepts
For number and letter series, check differences, ratios, alternating patterns, and squares or primes. For analogies, identify the exact relationship (part-to-whole, cause-effect, function) before matching. For syllogisms, use Venn diagrams rather than intuition; "some" statements do not guarantee "all." For seating and ranking puzzles, draw a quick diagram and fix positions one constraint at a time.
Common traps
Beware of converse errors: "All A are B" does not imply "All B are A." In series, a single apparent pattern may break later; verify with at least two steps. In coding questions, check whether letters shift by position, reverse, or use a keyword. Distractors often match a plausible but wrong relationship.
Worked example
Series: 2, 6, 12, 20, 30, ?. Differences are 4, 6, 8, 10, so the next difference is 12, giving 42. Alternatively, terms are n(n+1): 1·2, 2·3, 3·4, and so on, so the sixth term is 6·7 = 42. Rule of thumb: compute first differences; if they form a clean pattern, extend it rather than guessing.
Strategy
Spend no more than about a minute on any single item; mark and move on. Diagram-based methods prevent errors in logic puzzles.