General Intelligence and Reasoning: Draw It, Then Decide
What is tested
Reasoning questions test pattern recognition and clean step-by-step deduction: series, analogy, classification, coding–decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogism, seating, clocks and calendars, dice and images. Each question is solvable without a calculator; marks come from representing the data correctly.
Core rules
- Number series: check differences, then ratios, then squares/cubes, then alternating patterns.
- Alphabet series: write positions A=1 … Z=26; reverse positions sum to 27.
- Coding: test letter shifts before sums; a shift code applies uniformly to every letter.
- Blood relations: draw a family tree; use '+' male, '−' female, horizontal siblings, vertical parent–child.
- Direction: fix north and track every turn; final displacement uses Pythagoras.
- Syllogism: draw minimal Venn diagrams; a conclusion is valid only if true in every diagram.
Worked example
Series: 2, 6, 12, 20, 30, ?. Differences: 4, 6, 8, 10-each rises by 2. The next difference is 12, so the answer is 42. Checking n(n+1) also gives 6 × 7 = 42, which confirms the pattern.
Traps
'All A are B' does not convert to 'All B are A', though 'Some A are B' does convert. In coding, do not add alphabet positions when the question uses shifts. In blood relations, do not count the speaker twice. In direction, a left turn after facing south is east-sketch it. In seating, fix one person and mark left/right from that person's facing direction.