General Intelligence and Reasoning
The question families
General Intelligence and Reasoning in WBSSC SLST uses verbal and non-verbal items: analogies, series, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogism, seating arrangement, and figure completion. Speed comes from recognising the pattern type, not from lengthy algebra.
Core rules
- Letter codes: remember A=1 … Z=26; reverse codes use 27 − position.
- Syllogism: draw Venn diagrams; a conclusion follows only if true in every possible diagram.
- Blood relations: convert 'my father's sister' to aunt before drawing; do not count the speaker as a separate node.
- Direction: use a fixed compass; right and left turns are relative to the facing direction.
- Series: check differences, then ratios, then alternating patterns.
Worked example
Statements: All pens are books. Some books are red. Conclusion: Some pens are red. Is it valid? The first statement puts pens inside books. The second says at least one book is red, but that red book may lie outside the pen subset. A Venn diagram with pens inside books and red overlapping only the non-pen part satisfies both statements and falsifies the conclusion. Hence invalid.
Traps
- 'Some A are B' converts to 'some B are A', but 'all A are B' does not become 'all B are A'.
- In seating puzzles, confusing left and right when a row faces north versus south.
- Ignoring 'only a few' and 'no' quantifiers.
- Assuming a conclusion that is merely possible rather than certain.