Reasoning and Mental Ability
Reasoning and Mental Ability checks verbal and non-verbal logic: analogy, classification, series, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogism, ranking, clock and calendar, plus mirror image, paper folding and figure series.
Core rules
- Alphabet positions: A=1 up to Z=26; remember EJOTY (E=5, J=10, O=15, T=20, Y=25) to place letters quickly.
- In coding, test the shift letter by letter; mixed patterns that alternate between two shifts are common.
- In blood relations, draw a family tree and mark gender only after confirming it from the wording.
- In direction questions, plot each move on paper; a right turn means turning clockwise from the current facing.
- In syllogism, "All A are B" does not imply "All B are A", but "Some A are B" does convert to "Some B are A".
- Clock angle = |30H − 5.5M|, where H is the hour and M the minutes.
Worked example
A man walks 5 km north, turns right and walks 3 km, then turns right and walks 5 km. Where is he from the start? Reasoning: 5 km north, then 3 km east, then 5 km south. The two 5 km legs cancel each other, leaving only the 3 km eastward leg. He is 3 km east of the starting point.
Traps
- Forgetting that left and right are relative to the direction currently faced after a turn.
- Assuming the converse of a syllogism statement.
- Counting the gap from A to Z as 26 instead of 25.
- Writing family trees without symbols, then losing track of who is male or female.
- Overlooking negative marking while guessing non-verbal items.