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Home/Reasoning Ability Mastery/reasoning

Puzzles

Comprehensive guide to various puzzle types including Floor, Flat, Box, and Scheduling puzzles.

General Approach to Puzzles

Puzzles are the most weightage-carrying section in reasoning. The key is to transform textual clues into a visual representation (Grid or Diagram).

Core Steps:
1. Identify the 'Anchor' (Fixed element like floors or days).
2. Look for 'Definite' clues (e.g., A lives on floor 3).
3. Connect 'Related' clues to fill the gaps.
4. Handle 'Possibilities' by creating Case-1 and Case-2 parallelly.

Example:

Q: Seven people live in a 7-story building. 'P lives on an even-numbered floor. 2 floors between P and Q.'
Solution: Exam Attack: Don't just read it. Draw a 7-1 grid. Base positions for P are 2, 4, 6. Immediately draw 3 parallel columns.
Case 1: P is at 2. So Q is at 5.
Case 2: P is at 4. So Q can be at 1 or 7 (Spawns Case 2a and 2b).
Case 3: P is at 6. So Q is at 3.

Standard Puzzle Models

  1. Floor & Flat: Floors are vertical (1 to n). Flats are horizontal (Flat 1, Flat 2). If A lives in Flat 1 of Floor 3, and B lives immediately below A, B must be in Flat 1 of Floor 2.

    2. Box Puzzles: Unlike floors where numbers are fixed, boxes are floating until you anchor them. E.g. 'Three boxes between Box A and Box B' just gives you a block of 5 boxes (A _ _ _ B).

    3. Scheduling: Fix the chronological order as your base. Note the number of days in months (30 vs 31) as hints often exploit this.

    4. Designation & Salary: Fix the hierarchy from CEO (Top) to Clerk (Bottom). Treat it exactly like a floor puzzle.