SBI PO / Clerk Reasoning Ability Syllabus

In circular arrangement, when all persons face the CENTRE, how are their left and right determined?

For a person facing the centre, clockwise direction is to their LEFT and anticlockwise is to their RIGHT (opposite of facing outward).

In circular arrangement, when all persons face OUTWARD (away from centre), how are left and right determined?

For a person facing outward, clockwise is to their RIGHT and anticlockwise is to their LEFT.

In a square/rectangular arrangement, where do people typically sit and which way may they face?

People sit at the 4 corners and/or the middle of the 4 sides; corner-people and middle-people may face the centre or face outside as specified — direction rules then mirror circular logic.

In floor puzzles, if the building has 8 floors numbered 1 (bottom) to 8 (top), how do you interpret 'P lives above Q'?

P's floor number is greater than Q's. 'Above' = higher number; 'below' = lower number. Track gaps as differences in floor numbers.

In box-stacking puzzles, what does 'only two boxes are between Box A and Box B' establish?

There is a fixed gap of exactly two positions between A and B (e.g., A at 1 and B at 4, or A at 4 and B at 1), giving two possible orderings to test.

In scheduling puzzles (days/months), how do you handle a clue like 'an event happens on Wednesday' across a Mon-Sat week?

Fix the known anchor (Wednesday) first, then place relative clues ('before', 'after', 'immediately after') around it, ensuring no day is double-booked.

In month-based scheduling, what does 'X is scheduled in a month having 31 days' help you eliminate?

It restricts X to Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Aug, Oct, or Dec — letting you discard 30-day months and February as candidate slots.

In categorisation/comparison puzzles (people with multiple attributes), what is the recommended solving table structure?

Build a grid/matrix with persons as rows and each variable (e.g., city, car, age) as columns, filling definite clues first, then using elimination for the rest.

In coding-decoding, what is 'letter-shifting' (Caesar-type) coding?

Each letter is replaced by another a fixed number of positions forward or backward in the alphabet (e.g., +1: CAT → DBU). Identify the constant shift to decode.

In coding-decoding, what is the EJOTY rule used for?

It's a memory aid for alphabet positions: E=5, J=10, O=15, T=20, Y=25. It helps quickly find a letter's numeric position for shift/sum-based codes.

What is the reverse-alphabet (opposite letter) value of a letter, and how is it found?

Position from the other end = 27 − (position from start). E.g., A(1)↔Z(26), B(2)↔Y(25). Used in many coding patterns; remember A-Z mirror pairs.

In substitution/word coding-decoding, how do you crack a 'message coding' where whole words are coded?

Compare sentences that share common words; the common code-word matches the common actual word. Map words by intersection across multiple coded sentences.

In direction & distance, if you face North and turn 90° to your right twice, which direction do you now face?

South. Right turn = clockwise; North → East (first 90°) → South (second 90°).

What is the shortest-distance formula used in direction sense when displacement forms a right angle?

Shortest distance = √(a² + b²), the Pythagoras theorem, where a and b are the net horizontal (E-W) and vertical (N-S) displacements.

In direction sense, what are the four primary and four ordinal directions and their arrangement?

Primary: North, East, South, West (clockwise). Ordinal between them: NE (N-E), SE (S-E), SW (S-W), NW (N-W).

In order/ranking, if A is 7th from the left and 11th from the right in a row, how many persons are in the row?

Total = (left rank) + (right rank) − 1 = 7 + 11 − 1 = 17.

In ranking puzzles, how do you convert a person's rank from the top to rank from the bottom in a class of N?

Rank from bottom = N − (rank from top) + 1. (Same formula works for left/right ends in a row.)

In alphanumeric series, how do you handle a query like 'which element is third to the left of the seventh from the left'?

Find the 7th from the left, then move 3 positions further left: net position = 7 − 3 = 4th from the left.

In symbol/number/letter series, what is the first step to answer 'how many vowels are immediately preceded by a number'?

Scan left to right; for each vowel, check the element directly before it. Count only vowels whose immediately preceding element is a digit.

In Machine Input-Output, what defines a 'shifting' type machine logic?

In each step the machine rearranges words/numbers by moving certain elements (e.g., largest number, alphabetically first word) to one end, one per step, until fully sorted.

In Machine Input-Output, how do you find the input from a given intermediate step?

You generally cannot uniquely determine the original input from an output/later step, because the operation is not reversible — only forward steps can be derived.

In Data Sufficiency (two-statement format), what does the answer 'Statement I alone is sufficient but II alone is not' require?

Statement I by itself fully answers the question, while Statement II by itself does not — evaluate each statement independently before combining.

In Data Sufficiency, when is the answer 'both statements together are sufficient, but neither alone is'?

Neither I nor II answers the question on its own, but combining the information from both yields a unique, definite answer.

In Logical Venn Diagrams, how would you represent 'Dog, Animal, Cat'?

Two separate circles (Dog and Cat) both lying entirely inside a larger circle (Animal); Dog and Cat do not overlap each other.

In Logical Venn Diagrams, which figure represents three items that are partly related, e.g., 'Students, Girls, Athletes'?

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

In Venn diagrams, how do you depict a relationship like 'Pen, Pencil, Stationery'?

Pen and Pencil as two non-overlapping circles, both completely inside the larger Stationery circle (both are types of stationery but distinct from each other).

In analogy questions, what should you identify first to solve 'A : B :: C : ?'?

Determine the exact relationship between A and B (e.g., synonym, cause-effect, part-whole, numeric pattern), then apply the SAME relationship to C to find the answer.

In classification ('odd one out'), what is the solving approach?

Find the common property shared by most options; the item lacking that property (or following a different rule) is the odd one out.

In Strengthening/Weakening arguments, what makes a statement WEAKEN an argument?

It introduces a fact that attacks the argument's assumption or conclusion, making the conclusion less likely to be true (e.g., a counterexample or alternative cause).

In Course of Action questions, what are the two standard criteria a suggested action must meet to 'follow'?

The action must (1) directly address/solve the problem in the statement and (2) be practical, reasonable and feasible — not extreme or assuming facts not given.