SSC Exam Reasoning: Syllabus, Pattern & Approach

Clearing an SSC exam like SSC CGL is no cake walk. It requires you to demonstrate your aptitude on a test consisting of Quantitative Aptitude, English, General Knowledge and Reasoning & General Intelligence. Out of these 4 sections, the section on Reasoning & General Intelligence is considered the most scoring one. If you have to crack SSC Combined Graduate Level exam comfortably, then you have to score well on this section. To help you do this, the experts from, Vidya Guru, the Best SSC Coaching centre in Delhi have come up with a detailed analysis of the Reasoning & General Intelligence section seen in SSC CGL 2014.

The breakup of this section, having 50 questions of one mark each, was as follows:

Detailed Analysis

1. The difficulty level of the questions is not very high. Easy and medium difficulty questions comprise the section.
2. You can attempt around 44-46 questions without much difficulty with an accuracy of above 85 percent. The target should be of gathering 40+ marks from Reasoning & General Intelligence.
3. Most of the questions here are fairly direct and not very time consuming. The appropriate time to be allotted to this section is around 25-28 minutes.
4. Although, almost all questions are worth attempting, yet you must avoid excessive guesswork as negative marking @ .25 marks for each wrong answer is there.
5. Questions based on “series & finding the missing number” are a regular feature on the section. These questions may be related to both semantic series and number series. To solve them you must carefully observe the pattern in which the series is progressing.
6. Classification, coding-decoding, analogy and non-verbal reasoning are some of the key areas that you must focus on. Considering their significant weight age, it makes a lot of sense to attempt a lot of practice questions from these areas.
7. Non-verbal reasoning includes questions from topics such as: (I) mirror image & water image (II) paper cutting, folding & punching (III) completion of figural series (IV) embedded figures.
8. Around 2 to 4 questions involving inferential reasoning can be expected. These are from topics such as: syllogisms, statement-assumption and statement-conclusion.

Scope of Reasoning & General Intelligence

The section includes questions of both verbal and non-verbal type. It has questions on analogies, similarities & differences, space visualization, spatial orientation, problem solving, analysis, judgment, decision making, visual memory, discrimination, observation, relationship concepts, arithmetical reasoning, figural classification, arithmetic number series, non-verbal series, coding & decoding, statement-conclusion, syllogistic reasoning etc.

Exam Strategy

• The section must be attempted in two rounds.
• In the first round easy questions must be chosen, which can be answered fairly quickly.
• In the second round pick up those questions which are doable, but are slightly trickier and time consuming.
• Avoid solving those questions, which are difficult to grasp and require lengthy calculations.
• Do keep in mind that elimination of options can, quite often, help you arrive at the answer quickly.

Preparation Tips

• Cover all the topics that comprise the syllabus for Reasoning & General Intelligence.
• Pay special emphasis to those topics, which seem to have greater weight age as compared to others.
• Take different Reasoning & General Intelligence practice sets, having 50 questions each, which had appeared previously on SSC CGL. Attempt them as sectional tests to be solved in less than 30 minutes.
• Analyze how you perform on these tests. Focus on improving your speed and accuracy by learning from your mistakes.

Conclusion

The article clearly explains the pattern of the Reasoning & General Intelligence questions that appear in SSC CGL exam. It also outlines the approach that you must adopt to successfully crack them. In case of any difficulty or confusion, you can seek expert guidance by writing at vidyagurudelhi@gmail.com.