Reasoning Ability

Coding and Decoding

The four families of code question — letter shifts, letter-to-number, symbol substitution, and codes you deduce from example pairs — and a fixed routine for cracking each one.

Blood Relations

Relationship vocabulary across generations and in-laws, a symbol diagram that keeps the family straight, and set routines for pointing-to-a-photo statements and coded-relation expressions.

Direction and Distance

Tracking a path across the compass: turns relative to the current facing, net displacement north-south and east-west, straight-line distance by the Pythagorean rule, and the sunrise and sunset shadow trick.

Order and Ranking

Working out a total from two ranks, converting a rank from one end to the other, counting people between two positions, chaining taller-than and older-than comparisons, and the least-and-most-people questions.

Linear Seating Arrangement

Solving a single row and two rows facing each other: the grid method, fixing the strongest clue first, the difference between 'immediate' and 'somewhere', and the left-right flip when people face opposite ways.

Circular and Square Seating

Seating around a round table and around a square or rectangular one: which way is left when you face the centre, how facing outward reverses it, counting positions and opposite seats, and where people sit at corners and mid-sides.

Syllogisms

Deciding which conclusions follow from All, Some and No statements by drawing every possible Venn diagram — including possibility conclusions and either-or conclusions.

Number and Alphabet Series

The patterns behind number series and alphabet series, the fixed routine for finding the next term, and the 'wrong term' variant where one entry breaks an otherwise clean rule.

Analogy and Classification

How to name the relation inside an 'A is to B' pair and carry it across, and how to find the shared property that four items have and the odd one lacks.

Logical Venn Diagrams

Choosing the diagram that fits a set of related terms by checking every pair of classes, and reading a region-count diagram to answer 'how many are in X but not Y'.

Statement and Assumption

What counts as an implicit assumption, the negation test that decides it, and the four quick checks that reject a stated fact, an over-strong claim, an unconnected idea, or a mere hope.

Statement, Conclusion and Inference

Deciding what genuinely follows from a statement using only its own words, and grading an inference from a passage as definitely true, probably true, data inadequate, probably false, or definitely false.

Cause and Effect, Course of Action

Sorting an event pair into cause, effect, common cause, or independent using chronology and plausibility, and judging whether a suggested course of action actually addresses a stated problem.

Box and Floor Puzzles

The linear-order puzzle family — stacked boxes, building floors, a week's schedule — including how to translate 'above', 'gap of two', 'immediately' and negative clues, run an attribute column, and fix the most constrained variable first.

Coded Inequalities

Symbols stand in for the relations greater-than, less-than, equal, at-least and at-most. How to decode the symbols, build one combined chain, test each conclusion for a definite result, and spot the either-or complementary pair.

Syllogisms: Possibility and Reverse

The harder syllogism variants — 'is a possibility' conclusions, reverse syllogism where you pick the statements that force a given conclusion, and chains of three or four statements. All handled with Venn diagrams drawn as labelled regions.

Input-Output Machine

A machine rearranges a line of words and numbers by a fixed rule, one element per step, until the line is sorted. How to discover the rule from consecutive steps, then answer questions about a specific step, the final step, and the step count.

Data Sufficiency in Reasoning

The 'is statement I / II / both / either / neither sufficient' format applied to relations, orders, directions and codes. Test each statement alone before combining, and stop as soon as the answer is uniquely fixed.

Logical Connectives

Turning 'if', 'only if', 'unless', 'either-or' and 'neither-nor' into conditionals, using the contrapositive, and telling the two valid inferences (modus ponens, modus tollens) from the two fallacies (affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent).

Decision Making and Eligibility

The 'given these rules, does this candidate qualify, get referred, or get rejected' question. How to read a rules block with exceptions, apply it case by case, and use the 'data inadequate' verdict when a required fact is missing.