General Intelligence & Reasoning Ability
General Intelligence & Reasoning Ability checks whether you can detect patterns and follow formal rules quickly. DSSSB AE questions are usually moderate in difficulty but tightly timed, so a reliable method beats intuition. Expect analogies, number and letter series, coding–decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogisms, seating arrangements, and non-verbal items such as mirror images and embedded figures.
Core rules
- Series: test differences, ratios, squares/cubes, and alternating patterns before guessing.
- Coding: write the alphabet with positions 1–26 and check shifts in both directions.
- Blood relations: draw a small family tree; never infer gender from a role alone.
- Syllogism: apply set logic. 'All A are B' does not convert to 'All B are A'; 'Some A are B' does convert to 'Some B are A'.
- Seating/direction: fix a reference point and mark left/right from the person's facing direction.
Worked example
Statements: All engineers are graduates. Some graduates are managers. Conclusions: I. Some engineers are managers. II. Some managers are graduates. Venn reasoning: engineers sit inside graduates; the manager overlap with graduates may or may not touch engineers. So I is not certain. 'Some graduates are managers' converts validly to 'Some managers are graduates', so II follows. Answer: only II follows.
Traps
- Assuming real-world facts not stated in the syllogism.
- Reversing 'all' statements.
- Losing track of facing direction in circular seating.
- Confusing mirror image with water image: mirror reverses left–right; water reverses top–bottom.