SBI Clerk Reasoning Ability Syllabus

In a circular arrangement where all members face outward (away from centre), which direction is a person's right?

For an outward-facing person, the right is the clockwise neighbour and the left is the anticlockwise neighbour (reverse of facing-centre case).

In a rectangular/square table arrangement, where do people on opposite sides face?

Typically those on the longer/opposite sides face each other (one set faces north, the other south), so their left/right are mirrored relative to one another.

In Floor-based puzzles, how are floors usually numbered and which is 'topmost'?

Floors are numbered from bottom (1, lowest) to top (highest); the topmost floor has the largest number. 'Above' means higher number, 'below' means lower number.

In a Floor-and-Flat puzzle, what two attributes must be tracked per person?

The floor number (vertical position) and the flat/position on that floor (e.g. Flat 1 or Flat 2, often left/right), giving a grid of floor x flat.

In Day/Month scheduling puzzles, what is the standard ordering reference used?

A fixed sequence (days Mon-Sun or months Jan-Dec); clues like 'two days after' or 'the month between' are mapped onto this fixed order.

In a Box-stacking puzzle, how is 'immediately above' different from 'above'?

'Immediately above' means directly the next box with no box in between; 'above' means anywhere higher with possibly other boxes in between.

In Comparison/Ranking puzzles, how do you handle 'A is taller than B but shorter than C'?

Order them as C > A > B (C tallest, B shortest). Combine all such relations into one consistent ordering.

In ranking from both ends, if a person is 7th from the top and 11th from the bottom, what is the total number of people?

Total = 7 + 11 - 1 = 17 (subtract 1 because the person is counted in both ranks).

In a row, if A is 5th from the left and there are 20 people, what is A's position from the right?

Position from right = Total - position from left + 1 = 20 - 5 + 1 = 16th from the right.

In letter-coding, how do you decode a word coded by shifting each letter forward by a fixed number?

Identify the constant shift between a known plaintext-code letter pair, then shift each coded letter backward by that same number to recover the original.

In number-coding (substitution), how is a code typically cracked when each word maps to a number group?

Compare words sharing a common letter to see which number they share; assign each letter a fixed number by elimination across multiple examples.

In symbol coding (conditions-based), what is the standard step order?

Apply special conditions first (e.g. 'if first and last are vowels, swap codes'), then assign each element its base symbol/code per the given table.

In an alphanumeric series, how do you locate "a symbol immediately followed by a number"?

Scan left to right and pick each position whose element is a symbol AND whose next element is a digit; count those matching pairs.

What is the standard position value of the 13th letter of the English alphabet, and its reverse-order value?

M is 13th from the start (forward value 13) and also 14th from the end (reverse value 14); forward + reverse position always sums to 27.

How do you find the letter opposite to a given letter using the EJOTY/opposite rule?

Opposite letter value = 27 - (its forward position). E.g. for D (4): 27 - 4 = 23 = W, so D and W are opposite pairs.

In a number series, what kind of pattern do differences forming 2, 4, 6, 8 indicate?

An increasing arithmetic difference (each term adds a growing even number) — i.e. successive differences themselves form an AP.

In a letter series, what does a pattern like A, C, E, G show?

Skip-one pattern: each next letter advances by 2 positions in the alphabet (+2 each step).

In Direction Sense, after turning right while facing North, which direction do you face? And after a left turn while facing North?

Right turn from North faces East; left turn from North faces West.

In Direction Sense, how do you find the shortest (straight-line) distance after moving along two perpendicular legs of a and b?

Use the Pythagorean theorem: shortest distance = square root of (a^2 + b^2).

In Blood Relations, how do you decode "pointing to a photo, he said 'she is my mother's only son's wife'"?

Mother's only son = the speaker himself, so 'his wife' — the woman is the speaker's wife.

In coded Blood Relations using symbols (e.g. A + B means A is father of B), how do you read 'A + B - C'?

Apply each symbol's defined relation step by step left to right, tracking gender: A is father of B, and B is (per '-') the parent/spouse of C as defined, building the chain.

In Order and Ranking, what does 'A is between B and C' tell you?

A sits/ranks somewhere with B on one side and C on the other; it fixes A's relative middle position but not the absolute end positions until combined with other clues.

In the Alphabet Test, how do you find which letter is, say, '4th to the left of the 7th from the right'?

First locate the 7th letter from the right end, then move 4 positions to its left; net position = (7th from right) shifted left by 4.

In Analogy, how do you solve 'Doctor : Hospital :: Teacher : ?'

Identify the relationship (worker : workplace) and apply it: Teacher : School.

In Classification (Odd One Out), what is the basic approach?

Find the common property shared by most items; the one item lacking that shared property (different category/type) is the odd one out.

In Odd One Out among numbers like 8, 27, 64, 100, which is odd and why?

100 is odd — 8, 27, 64 are perfect cubes (2^3, 3^3, 4^3) while 100 is a perfect square, not a cube.

In an Input-Output (shifting) machine, how do you determine the operation per step?

Compare each step's output with the previous step to find what moved/changed (e.g. words/numbers arranged in order, one element shifted per step); the same rule repeats until the final arrangement.

In Input-Output, what is the typical rule when words are arranged alphabetically and numbers in ascending order in each step?

One word or number is rearranged per step (e.g. smallest number or first-alphabet word moved to one end), repeating until all are sorted; later steps can be deduced without the input.

In Logical Venn Diagrams, how would you represent the relationship among Dog, Animal, and Cat?

Two separate (non-overlapping) small circles, Dog and Cat, both lying entirely inside one large circle, Animal.

In Logical Venn Diagrams, which figure represents three items that partly share but are distinct, like Players, Singers, Students?

Three mutually overlapping (intersecting) circles, since a person can belong to any combination of the three groups.

In Word Formation, what is the rule for forming a meaningful word from given letters?

Use only the given letters (usually each at most once unless repeated), and check whether they can be rearranged into a valid dictionary word; count or identify such words as asked.