Reasoning and General Intelligence
Reasoning and General Intelligence tests pattern recognition, logical deduction and spatial arrangement. The section rewards a disciplined method: classify the question type, write down every constraint, and eliminate options rather than guessing.
Core areas and rules
- Series: test differences, ratios, squares and cubes, alternating patterns, and letter-position jumps.
- Coding–decoding: map letters to positions (A = 1 … Z = 26). Check shifts, reversals and position products.
- Blood relations: draw a family tree with clear male/female symbols. Never infer gender from a name.
- Direction sense: sketch each turn and track the facing direction. Use Pythagoras for right-angled final displacements.
- Syllogism: draw Venn diagrams. A conclusion must be true in every possible diagram, not merely possible.
- Seating and puzzles: begin with the most constrained clue, not the first sentence.
Worked example
If CAT is coded as 3120, how is DOG coded? The code concatenates letter positions: C = 3, A = 1, T = 20, giving 3120. Therefore D = 4, O = 15, G = 7, so DOG = 4157.
Traps that cost marks
- Losing track of left and right after a turn; always mark the new facing direction.
- Ignoring the word “only” in blood-relation clues, which fixes identity.
- Accepting a syllogism conclusion that is possible but not certain.
- Assuming an unstated order in seating puzzles.
- Forgetting that two-digit positions (10–26) change the length of a letter code.
- Overwriting a diagram instead of redrawing it when a clue fails.
In puzzles, test each clue against the diagram before adding the next; one wrong placement wastes several minutes.