SSC CGL General Intelligence & Reasoning: questions, weightage & strategy
Reasoning is the highest-accuracy section in SSC CGL for a prepared candidate — the question types are finite and repeat cycle after cycle. Most toppers target 23+ out of 25 here, and use the time saved on Quant.
| Exam | SSC CGL |
|---|---|
| Section | General Intelligence & Reasoning |
| Weightage | 25 questions · 50 marks in Tier-I |
| Paper pattern | Tier-I: 100 questions / 200 marks / 60 minutes · −0.50 per wrong answer |
What actually scores in SSC CGL General Intelligence & Reasoning
Series, analogy, classification, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, syllogism, mirror/water images, paper folding and cubes. Learn each family's method once, then it's pattern recognition rather than thinking.
Mirror images, paper folding and embedded figures are purely visual and take seconds once drilled. Many aspirants under-practise them because they feel unserious — that's the edge.
25 questions in about 12–14 minutes leaves the budget Quant needs. If a puzzle exceeds a minute, mark and move — reasoning rewards pace, not persistence.
High-yield topics
- ✓Number and alphabet series
- ✓Coding-decoding (letter shifting, arithmetic coding)
- ✓Blood relations and direction sense
- ✓Syllogism with Venn diagrams
- ✓Non-verbal: mirror images, paper folding, embedded figures
5 General Intelligence & Reasoning questions to try now
These are original practice questions written in the SSC CGL style — not official previous-year papers. For the real papers as published, download the official PDFs.
Find the next term in the series: 3, 6, 11, 18, 27, ?
Why: The differences are 3, 5, 7, 9 — consecutive odd numbers. The next difference is 11, so 27 + 11 = 38.
If TEACHER is coded as VGCEJGT, how is STUDENT coded?
Why: Each letter shifts forward by 2 (T→V, E→G, A→C…). Applying +2 to STUDENT gives U, V, W, F, G, P, V — UVWFGPV.
Pointing to a photograph, a man said, 'She is the daughter of my grandfather's only son.' How is the woman related to the man?
Why: The grandfather's only son is the man's own father. The father's daughter is therefore the man's sister.
A man walks 5 km north, turns right and walks 3 km, then turns right and walks 5 km. How far is he from the starting point?
Why: The two 5 km legs are north then south, cancelling out. Only the 3 km eastward leg remains, so he is 3 km from the start.
Statements: All roses are flowers. Some flowers fade quickly. Conclusion I: Some roses fade quickly. Conclusion II: All flowers are roses. Which follows?
Why: 'Some flowers fade quickly' need not include roses, so I doesn't follow. II reverses the universal statement, which is invalid. Neither conclusion follows.
Other SSC CGL sections
SSC CGL General Intelligence & Reasoning — FAQ
25 questions worth 50 marks. It's widely considered the most scoring section because the question types repeat across cycles.