General Mental Ability — CUET UG General Test

General Mental Ability sits alongside Logical & Analytical Reasoning at a distinctly simpler level: every question here resolves in a single step once the underlying pattern or relationship is spotted, with no multi-clue chain to track. The entire skill is recognising WHICH kind of pattern is in front of you — an analogy, a classification, a series — since each type has its own short, fixed method once identified.

1. Analogies

An analogy question states a relationship between a first pair of words or numbers, and asks for a second pair that shares the EXACT SAME relationship — identifying the relationship's type precisely, not just noting that the two pairs are "related" in some vague sense, is the whole skill. Common relationship types include part-to-whole, cause-to-effect, item-to-purpose (action), item-to-typical-location (place), and opposites.

Fish is to Water as Bird is to Sky (a place/habitat relationship). Knife is to Cut as Pen is to Write (a tool-to-its-action relationship). Hot is to Cold as Day is to Night (an opposites relationship).

2. Number analogies

Number analogies apply the identical logic to numbers instead of words — the relationship is usually a fixed arithmetic operation, most often squaring, doubling, or a fixed addition/subtraction, applied consistently to both given pairs. $3:9$ pairs with $6:36$ (both follow "square the first number"), since $3^2=9$ and $6^2=36$.

3. Classification (odd one out)

A classification question gives several items and asks which one does NOT share the property common to all the others — the method is identifying what property connects the majority first, then checking each item against that specific property, rather than guessing based on a vague sense of similarity. Given $4,9,16,25,30$, the first four are all perfect squares ($2^2,3^2,4^2,5^2$) while 30 is not — making 30 the odd one out.

The same method applies to shapes and words: find the property shared by most of the items (number of sides, a grammatical category, a specific attribute) before deciding which single item breaks that pattern.

4. Number series

A number series gives several terms and asks for the next one, and identifying the series' TYPE is the entire task — the calculation afterward is always a single, direct step. The main types worth recognising on sight are:

5. Letter series

Letter series apply the identical logic to letters, using their position in the alphabet (A=1 through Z=26) as the underlying number — a series can move forward or backward through the alphabet, with a constant or changing step size, exactly like a number series. The series Z, X, V, T, ? steps backward by 2 letters each time, so the next letter is R.

6. Coding-decoding

At this level, coding-decoding is almost always a fixed, constant letter shift applied to every letter of a word — identify the shift from the one worked example given, then apply that exact same shift to every letter of the new word. This is the same method used in Logical & Analytical Reasoning's coding questions, just tested here in isolation rather than alongside other reasoning clues.

7. Direction sense (basic)

At the General Mental Ability level, direction-sense questions typically involve just one or two turns rather than the longer multi-leg journeys seen in Logical & Analytical Reasoning — track the final facing direction and net position using the same independent-axis method, just with fewer steps to combine.

Worked Examples

Example 1. Complete the analogy: Wheel is to Car as Wing is to ?

A wheel is a part enabling a car's motion; a wing is the corresponding part enabling flight.

Answer: Aeroplane / Bird.

Example 2. Complete the analogy: Doctor is to Hospital as Teacher is to ?

A doctor's typical place of work is a hospital; a teacher's typical place of work is a school.

Answer: School.

Example 3. Complete the number analogy: $4:16::7:?$

The relationship is "square the first number": $4^2=16$, so $7^2=49$.

Answer: 49.

Example 4. Find the odd one out: 121, 144, 169, 200, 225.

$121=11^2$, $144=12^2$, $169=13^2$, $225=15^2$ are all perfect squares; 200 is not.

Answer: 200.

Example 5. Find the odd one out: Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Circle, Hexagon.

Triangle, Square, Pentagon and Hexagon are all polygons with a fixed number of straight sides (3, 4, 5, 6); a circle has no straight sides at all.

Answer: Circle.

Example 6. Find the next term: 5, 9, 13, 17, ?

Each term increases by a constant 4 (arithmetic series): $17+4=21$.

Answer: 21.

Example 7. Find the next term: 2, 6, 18, 54, ?

Each term is 3 times the previous one (geometric series): $54\times 3=162$.

Answer: 162.

Example 8. Find the next term: 2, 6, 12, 20, 30, ?

Each term follows $n^2+n$: for $n=1$ to $5$ the terms are $2,6,12,20,30$; for $n=6$: $6^2+6=42$.

Answer: 42.

Example 9. Find the next letter: B, E, H, K, ?

Each letter moves forward by 3 positions in the alphabet (B=2, E=5, H=8, K=11): the next is position 14, which is N.

Answer: N.

Example 10. If FLOWER is coded as GMPXFS (each letter shifted forward by 1), how is GARDEN coded in the same rule?

Applying the +1 shift to each letter: G→H, A→B, R→S, D→E, E→F, N→O.

Answer: HBSEFO.

Example 11. A man faces north, turns 90° clockwise, walks 5 km, then turns 90° clockwise again and walks 5 km. In which direction is he now facing, and how far is he from the start?

Facing north, a 90° clockwise turn faces him east; walking 5 km east. A second 90° clockwise turn faces him south; walking 5 km south. He now faces south. His net position: 5 km east and 5 km south of the start, a straight-line distance of $\sqrt{5^2+5^2}=5\sqrt{2}\approx 7.07$ km.

Answer: Facing south, approximately 7.07 km from the start.

Summary

Every General Mental Ability question resolves in one step once its pattern TYPE is correctly identified — analogy, classification, number/letter series, coding, or basic direction.

Analogies require matching the exact same relationship type (part-whole, action, place, opposites) in a second pair, not merely a vague sense of relatedness. Classification finds the property shared by the majority first, then checks which single item breaks it.

Number and letter series come in a small fixed set of recognisable types — arithmetic, geometric, squares, primes, Fibonacci, and formula-based patterns like $n^2+n$ — and identifying the type is the entire task, since extending it afterward is a single direct calculation. Coding-decoding and basic direction-sense questions apply the same fixed-rule and independent-axis methods taught more extensively in Logical & Analytical Reasoning, just in shorter, single-step form here.