Cheatsheet: Odd one out | IBPS PO Prelims & Mains Preparation - Bank Exams PDF Download

Theory

• Odd one out questions are often asked in Banking exams. One should expect 3 to 5 questions and these questions can be answered easily using the given concept. The following types of questions which can be asked in odd one out.
  
  • Four words are given: In this type, four words are given of which three words are linked to each other by a certain attribute. One of the words is odd one out. These attributes can be
  • Same meaning: The three words can be of same meaning. For eg. ephemeral, transitory, fleeting, enduring. In this group the first three words have same meaning, that is lasting for a short time while the meaning of enduring is one which lasts for a long time and hence enduring is an odd one out. 
  • Same part of speech: Three of the words may belong to the same part of speech while the remaining word belongs to another part of speech. For eg. run, sprint, swim, beautiful. In this group, the first three words are verbs while the last word is an adjective. Hence “beautiful” is odd one out.
  • Same class: Three words belong to one class while the remaining word belongs to another class. For eg. in Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Nile, the first three words are the names of oceans while the Nile is the name of a river.
  • Same part of an object: Three words  belong to the same part of an object while the remaining word is not a part of that object. For eg. Stems, Petals, Pistil, Trunk. The first three words are parts of a flower while “Trunk” is a part of a tree. 
• Four part of words are given: In this type, four pairs of words are given out of which three pairs of words have a common relationship. For eg. in Bones:Osteology, Blood: Haematology, Eyes: Ophthalmology and Prison: Psephology, Prison: Psephology is the odd one out as the study of prison is known as penology while psephology is the study of elections. Osteology, Haematology and Ophthalmology are the studies of bones, blood and eyes respectively.
• Four group of letters are given: In this type, four groups of letters are given which will exhibit a certain relationship. For eg., in BDA, FHE, CEB, PRQ, “PRQ” is an odd one out. In BDA, B is the 2nd letter from the start, D is the fourth letter from the start and A is the starting letter of the alphabet. So BDA can be represented as 2-4-1. Similarly, FHE, CEB, PRQ can be represented as 6-8-5, 3-5-2 and 16-18-17 respectively. In the first three groups the first letter is one ahead of the third letter and the second letter is three ahead of the third letter. This relationship is not exhibited in the last group.
• Four Numbers are given: In these type of questions, four numbers are given out of which three numbers exhibit a certain relationship while the odd one out doesn’t exhibit that relationship. For eg. in 9,28,65,121, 121 is the odd one out as the rest of the numbers are one ahead of the cube of a natural number.

Tips

• First, you read the words in a given order.
• You figured out that three of them have the common category of ‘vehicles’.
• You comprehended that the fourth one does not belong to this group and so that is the answer to this question.

Solved Example