General Knowledge and General Ability
General knowledge
- Sri Lanka gained independence on 4 February 1948 and became a republic in 1972; the present constitution dates from 1978.
- Official languages are Sinhala and Tamil, with English as the link language; the currency is the Sri Lankan rupee.
- The island has 9 provinces and 25 districts; Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is the administrative capital and Colombo the commercial hub.
- World facts worth knowing: seven continents and five oceans, SAARC (founded 1985 in Dhaka, secretariat in Kathmandu), the United Nations (headquarters in New York) and the Commonwealth.
General ability
- Number series: find the rule from differences or ratios - 3, 6, 12, 24 doubles each time, so the next term is 48.
- Analogies: name the relationship before choosing - part to whole (wheel : car), function (pen : write), opposite (hot : cold), category (mango : fruit).
- Coding: convert letters to positions (A = 1 … Z = 26). If CAT is written DBU (each letter +1), then DOG becomes EPH.
- Odd one out: three items share a category the fourth lacks.
- Spatial reasoning: rotate rather than reflect; a cube net has six squares, and opposite faces never touch.
- Ordering puzzles: draw a line and place each name as a clue fixes its position.
Worked example
"Nimal is taller than Kamal. Kamal is taller than Sunil. Who is shortest?"
Reasoning: write the chain Nimal > Kamal > Sunil. Sunil sits below both, so Sunil is shortest. Had the question asked for the tallest, the answer would be the top of the chain, Nimal.
Traps that cost marks
- Guessing a series rule from two terms only - always test it on a third term.
- Reversing an analogy (choosing whole-to-part when the stem is part-to-whole).
- Reflecting a figure instead of rotating it.
- Missing "NOT", "except" or "cannot" in the question stem.
- Confusing similar dates or place names when answering quickly.