Overview: Pattern Completion | General Intelligence and Reasoning for SSC CGL PDF Download

What is Arrangement Pattern Reasoning?

Arrangement Pattern based questions involve arranging the persons, objects, words or  numbers according to the conditions given in the question. Important topics that come under arrangement pattern reasoning are Sitting Arrangement, Order and Word Formation, Alphabet Test, Coding Decoding and so on. Let us understand each one of them one by one from below.

Types of Arrangement Pattern Reasoning 

Let us see the various types of questions that may come in the Arrangement Pattern Reasoning section one by one from below. 

• Sitting Arrangement: Sitting Arrangement is a process of making a group of people sit as per a prefixed manner. These questions are based on a set of information including a certain set of conditions. Information of the arrangement of the people in a row or around the circle will be given, and candidates need to arrange people in the row or circle or square according to the given condition. 
• Order and Word Formation: In the Order and Word Formation reasoning section, candidates need to form a new meaningful word/s from the given set of alphabets or words. This type of question will be asked to judge the vocabulary of the candidates. 
• Alphabet Test: When the arrangement of letters or words sequence involves two or more patterns of letters including numbers and symbols with an equal occurrence and all together making some pattern in general are called patterns of words or letters in general.
  So in Alphabet Test questions are based on finding the place of an English letter to the left or right of another English letter in the alphabetical order. Sometimes the questions are based on finding the number of English letter/s between two different letters. 
• Coding Decoding: Coding-Decoding is a process of transmitting information from one place to another by using some suitable codes, so that it might reach another person safely. Coding and Decoding of information is done with various rules or patterns, so that only the right person can decipher it. 

Arrangement Pattern Reasoning Sample Questions

Q1: Direction: Study the following information and answer the given questions.
Pawan, Qaseem, Rajan, Suresh, Tariq, Uzma, Waseem, and Zainab are sitting in a line facing north. Zainab sits third to the left of Suresh. Zainab sits at the extreme end of the row. Only one person sat between Suresh and Qaseem. Only two people sit between Qaseem and Waseem, who is an immediate neighbor of Pawan. Uzma sits third to the left of Rajan.
Who is an immediate neighbor of Tariq?
Sol: 
People: Pawan, Qaseem, Rajan, Suresh, Tariq, Uzma, Waseem, and Zainab.

• Zainab sits third to the left of Suresh.
• Zainab sits at the extreme end of the row.
• Only one person sat between Suresh and Qaseem.
• Only two people sit between Qaseem and Waseem, who is an immediate neighbor of Pawan.
• Uzma sits third to the left of Rajan

Hence, Qaseem and Rajan is an immediate neighbor of Tariq.

Q2: Direction: Study the following information carefully and answer the questions based on it.
Eight friends Divya, Dev, Piyush, Shiv, Nisha, Geeta, Bhavna, Govinda are sitting around the circular table but not necessarily in the same order and are facing towards the center of the table.
Nisha is third to the left of Bhavna. Dev and Piyush are neighbors. Divya is sitting opposite to Geeta. Shiv is an immediate neighbor of Bhavna. There are two people sitting between Nisha and Geeta. Dev and Govinda are sitting opposite to each other.
Who is sitting immediate to the right of Nisha?
Sol: 
Persons: Divya, Dev, Piyush, Shiv, Nisha, Geeta, Bhavna, Govinda

• Shiv is an immediate neighbor of Bhavna.
• Nisha is third to the left of Bhavna.
• There are two people sitting between Nisha and Geeta.
• Divya is sitting opposite to Geeta.
• Dev and Piyush are neighbors.
• Dev and Govinda are sitting opposite to each other.

Case 1 cannot satisfy the above conditions. Hence, Case 1 gets eliminated. Hence, Piyush is the correct answer.

Q3: Direction: Study the following information carefully and answer the question given below.
Eight friends are sitting around a rectangular table either in the middle side or at the corner. Four of them like fruits, apples, mangoes, Grapes, and bananas, and four of them like vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes, Broccoli, and cucumbers. The person who likes vegetables sits at the corner faces inside and the person who likes fruits sits in the middle faces outside.
Only two friends sit between the one who likes Mango and the one who likes Broccoli. The one who likes Grapes sits second to the right of the one who likes Mango. Only one person sits between the one who likes Tomato and the one who likes Potato. The one who likes Apple is an immediate neighbor of the one who likes Potato. Friends who like Banana and Broccoli do not sit together.
Who sits opposite to the one who likes Broccoli?
Sol: 
According to the question:

• Only two friends sit between the one who likes Mango and the one who likes Broccoli.
• The one who likes Grapes sits second to the right of the one who likes Mango.
• Friends who like Banana and Broccoli do not sit together. (This eliminates case 1)
• The one who likes Apple is the immediate neighbor of the one who likes Potato.
• Only one person sits between the one who likes Tomato and the one who likes Potato.

Hence, the one who likes Tomato sits opposite to the one who likes Broccoli.

Q4: How many meaningful words can be constituted by using the first, fourth, seventh and ninth letter in the word PERMANENT?
Sol: In the given question
Hence, we can form one meaningful word which is TEMP.

Q5: Arrange the following words according to English dictionary
1. Episode
2. Epistle
3. Episcope
4. Epigraph
Sol: As per the English dictionary, the correct order of words will be: 4 > 3 > 1 > 2

Q6: How many such pairs of digits are there in the numbers “2651894” after arranging the digits of the number in increasing order each of which has many digits between them in the number, as they have between them the sequence?
Sol: The number “2651894” can be represented as follows.
As we can see, 3 such pairs are there such as 12, 45, 46, 56, and 89.

Q7: How many such pairs of letters are there in the word “REPRESENT” each of which has as many letters between them in the word (in both forward and backward directions) as they have between them in the English alphabetical series?
Sol: The word “REPRESENT” can be represented as follows.
As we can see, 3 such pairs are there such as RP, RN and PS.

Q8: In a certain code language, “if FRIEND” is written as  “UIRVMW”, then how is “TRADER” will be written in that code language?
Sol: The pattern used in this question is opposite to that letter such as
Therefore, TRADER will be coded as GIZWVI.