Reasoning Ability: Puzzles, Syllogism and Coded Logic
Reasoning Ability in the MP Apex Bank paper checks whether you can pull structure out of unfamiliar arrangements and apply fixed rules under time pressure. The section mixes multi-question puzzle sets with short standalone items, and the marks go to the candidate who sets up a clean grid before looking at the options.
High-yield question types
- Seating and floor puzzles: circular (facing centre versus facing outside), linear, double-row and floor-based arrangements with 5-8 people.
- Syllogism: including possibility conclusions; only guaranteed overlap counts.
- Inequality: chains using >, ≥, =, <, ≤ and the either-or complementary pair case.
- Coding-decoding: letter shifts, position values, mixed number-symbol codes.
- Alphanumeric series, blood relations, direction sense, order-ranking, input-output.
Worked example
Statements: All clerks are bankers. Some bankers are auditors. Conclusion offered: Some clerks are auditors. Draw three sets. The clerks circle sits wholly inside bankers. The auditors set must overlap bankers somewhere, but that overlap has no stated link to clerks, so it can sit entirely outside the clerks circle. The conclusion is therefore not definitely true - it is only a possibility. A conclusion of the form 'All A are B' needs a chain of 'all' statements; a single 'some' link in the middle blocks it.
Marks-losing traps
- Solving arrangements mentally instead of on paper; one missed 'facing outside' flip destroys a five-question set.
- Treating a possible conclusion as definite, or a definite conclusion as merely possible.
- Ignoring the either-or rule in inequality questions, where two complementary conclusions together must be true.
- Sinking six or more minutes into one puzzle. Mark it, move on, and return with fresh eyes.