Reasoning Ability (with Computer Aptitude in Phase 2)
Phase 1 tests 35 reasoning questions in 60 minutes shared with two other sections; Phase 2 re-tests reasoning and adds computer aptitude, so the same puzzle discipline plus number-system and shortcut knowledge earns marks twice.
What dominates
- Puzzle and seating sets (floor, month, box, day, circular and linear arrangements) supply 15-20 of the 35 questions. Three to four sets solved cleanly beat grazing at seven.
- The remainder comes from inequality, syllogism (including the only a few pattern), blood relation, direction, coding-decoding, alphanumeric series, order-ranking and input-output.
Rules that prevent wasted attempts
- In inequality chains only direct chains translate: A ≥ B > C gives A > C, but A ≥ B ≠ C gives nothing, because not equal breaks the chain.
- Only a few A are B means Some A are B and Some A are not B. The reverse of the second statement does not hold, and All A being B is a possibility fails.
- Computer aptitude: 1 byte = 8 bits and 1 KB = 1024 bytes; gates are AND (·), OR (+), NOT (bar). Generations of computers, MS Office shortcuts, memory units and DBMS terms (tuple, attribute, primary key) recur.
Worked example
Statements: Only a few banks are NBFCs. No NBFC is a cooperative. Conclusion I: Some banks are not cooperatives. Conclusion II: All banks being NBFCs is a possibility. At least one bank is an NBFC, and no NBFC is a cooperative, so that bank lies outside the cooperative set - I follows. But only a few guarantees that some banks are not NBFCs, so the possibility in II is ruled out. Only I follows.
Traps
Treating No A is B and Some A are B as compatible with All A are B; and in puzzles, locking an arrangement before testing the mirrored second solution, which is where most candidates lose the set.