Q2 — LOGICAL: EVERY QUESTION TYPE

What it looks like · the move · a worked example

The highest marks-per-hour section in the paper. Candidates who sat it in 2026 repeatedly called it easy: "Logical reasoning was very easy, you can score above 15 easily."

The reason is that the shapes repeat far more than in numerical. Learn the shape, apply the move, done.

Before the section starts, write this on your rough sheet (rough sheets are provided):

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M
1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13
N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Mirror pairs: A↔Z B↔Y C↔X … (position = 27 − p)

copy

Forty seconds, and it makes a quarter of the section faster.

1 · SEATING ARRANGEMENT — 23 questions

Draw every single one. Nobody solves these reliably in their head. Work from definite clues to conditional ones — place what is certain first.

1A · Circular — 39%

Type 1 — People facing the centre

Looks like: "Six friends sit around a circular table facing the centre. A is second to the right of B…" The move: ⭐ Facing the centre → their LEFT is clockwise on your diagram, their RIGHT is anti-clockwise. Fix one person as a reference (rotations are equivalent, so this is free), then place definite clues. Example: Draw the circle, number the seats, put B at seat 1, write the facing rule at the top of your sheet before placing anyone else.

Type 2 — People facing outward

The move: ⭐ The rule reverses — left is anti-clockwise, right is clockwise. This is the single most common source of a perfect-logic-wrong-answer.

Type 3 — "Opposite" in a circle

The move: Opposite = n/2 seats away. Only meaningful for an even number of people.

Type 4 — Mixed facing (some in, some out)

The move: Mark each person's facing arrow as you place them, and read left/right from that person's perspective every time.

1B · Linear — 39%

Type 5 — Single row, all facing the same way

Looks like: "Seven people sit in a row facing north." The move: Draw the row. Fix the facing direction. Place the ends first — a clue about an end is worth more than one about the middle. Example: "A is at the extreme left, C is fourth from the left, B is immediately right of C" → A(1), C(4), B(5). Build outward from certainties.

Type 6 — ⚠️ Bidirectional row

Looks like: "…some face north and some face south." The move: Do not assume uniform facing. Mark each arrow; left/right differs per person.

Type 7 — ⚠️ Dual row (two rows facing each other)

The move: Draw the rows aligned vertically so you can see who faces whom. People opposite each other have mirrored left/right.

Type 8 — Floor / building puzzle

The move: Same technique, vertical. Ground floor at the bottom. Careful: "above" means any floor above; "immediately above" is the stronger phrase.

1C · The two rules that decide most questions

⭐ The off-by-one rule

"A is three people away from B" means two people sit between them (3 − 1 = 2). "Away from" and "between" differ by one, and getting it wrong shifts everything after it.

⭐ Multi-case diagrams

When a clue allows two possibilities, draw both as Case 1 and Case 2 side by side and carry them forward until a later clue kills one. Do not erase and retry — erasing loses information. If a case contradicts, cross it out entirely and never revisit it.

If every case contradicts, your error is almost certainly the facing convention, not the logic. Re-check step one before re-checking anything else.