Reasoning
Reasoning tests deduction, not remembered facts. It appears in both prelims and mains of IBPS RRB, and the puzzle and seating-arrangement sets usually decide most candidates' scores.
High-yield topics
- Syllogism: draw minimal Venn diagrams; a conclusion follows only if it is true in every possible diagram. Possibility conclusions follow when no statement forbids the overlap.
- Seating arrangement: circular facing the centre means right is anticlockwise; facing outward reverses it.
- Blood relations: build a family tree, mark gender with + or −, never infer gender from a name.
- Inequality: coded inequalities follow priority order; either-or applies when two conclusions form a complementary pair such as A > B and A ≤ B and neither is individually true.
- Puzzles: fix the definite position first, then branch, keeping an elimination table.
- Direction sense: sketch the path and use Pythagoras for the shortest distance.
Worked example
Statements: All banks are institutions. Some institutions are NBFCs. Conclusion I: Some banks are NBFCs. Conclusion II: Some banks being NBFCs is a possibility. The NBFCs that are institutions may or may not overlap with banks, so conclusion I is not definite. Nothing in the statements forbids the overlap, so conclusion II is a valid possibility. Answer: only II follows.
Traps
Reading some as some not; treating a possibility as a definite conclusion; ignoring either-or when conclusions are individually false but complementary; reversing right and left in circular arrangements; assuming two arrangements when the puzzle forces one.