Reasoning Ability and Logical Reasoning
Reasoning Ability and Logical Reasoning checks whether you can draw valid conclusions from limited information. Typical areas are seating arrangements, puzzles, syllogisms, inequalities, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, order-ranking and series.
Core rules
- In inequalities, the same symbol keeps the relation: A > B > C means A > C. A mixed chain gives a definite conclusion only when the direction is consistent.
- In syllogisms, use a Venn diagram. "All A are B" does not convert to "All B are A"; "Some A are B" does convert to "Some B are A".
- In seating puzzles, fix one person first, then place "left/right" according to the facing direction. For people facing north, left is your left; facing south, left is your right.
- In coding-decoding, compare letter positions and check reversal, shifts or word-order changes before assuming a rule.
Worked example
Statements: A > B ≥ C = D < E. Conclusions: (i) A > D (ii) C < E. From A > B and B ≥ C, A is greater than C; since C = D, A > D follows. From C = D and D < E, C < E follows. Both conclusions are valid.
Traps
Marking "either/or" when one conclusion alone is definitely true; reversing an inequality; ignoring the word "only"; assuming a possible seating arrangement is the only one; missing that "some" allows overlap but not identity.