General Intelligence and Reasoning
Question types
General Intelligence and Reasoning tests verbal and non-verbal reasoning: analogies, classification, number and letter series, coding–decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogism, seating arrangement, mirror images and paper folding.
Core rules
- Series: check differences, then ratios, then squares or cubes, then alternating patterns.
- Coding: write the alphabet with positions 1–26 and compare letter shifts.
- Syllogism: draw Venn diagrams; some statements do not produce all conclusions.
- Directions: fix north and track left and right turns; a left turn from east leads north.
- Blood relations: draw a family tree, using + for male, − for female and = for marriage.
Worked example
Find the next term: 3, 7, 15, 31, ?. Differences are 4, 8 and 16-doubling. The next difference is 32, so 31 + 32 = 63. A second valid pattern is multiply by 2 and add 1: 3×2+1=7, 7×2+1=15, 15×2+1=31, so 31×2+1=63. Both methods confirm 63. If you stop after one difference, you may wrongly add 16 again and choose 47.
Traps that cost marks
- Assuming an arithmetic progression when the differences are changing.
- Forgetting that some A are B remains compatible with no A are B in syllogism.
- Reversing left and right after a U-turn.
- Treating a mirror image and a water image as the same transformation.
- Overlooking that seating puzzles may fix facing direction, which reverses left and right.