Direction & Distance — IBPS PO Reasoning

Direction problems describe a walk — "started north, turned right, walked 5 km…" — and ask the final direction or the shortest distance from start. The mistake is tracking it mentally; the fix is a rough compass sketch and one formula. IBPS asks 2–3 of these (and folds coded-direction into Mains puzzles), and with a diagram plus the 3-4-5 Pythagoras shortcut, they're 30-second marks. This chapter is the turn rules, the distance trick, and the twists.

1. What IBPS actually asks

• Path tracing: follow a sequence of moves and turns; find the final position/direction or displacement.
• Shortest distance: the straight-line distance between start and end (Pythagoras).
• Coded direction (Mains): directions are disguised ("A is to the north of B" via symbols) or embedded in a seating puzzle.

2. Set the compass and the turn rules

Draw the compass: North up, South down, East right, West left. Then:

• Right turn: rotate 90° clockwise (N→E→S→W→N).
• Left turn: rotate 90° anticlockwise (N→W→S→E→N).
• "Turn to the right" is relative to the direction you're currently facing, not to the page. This is the single biggest error — always turn from the current heading.

Sketch each leg as an arrow of roughly proportional length; the picture prevents mistakes a mental model won't.

3. Shortest distance — the Pythagoras shortcut

After the walk, the start and end usually form a right triangle. The straight-line (shortest) distance is the hypotenuse:

$d=\sqrt{(\text{net East–West}{)}^2+(\text{net North–South}{)}^2}$

Compute net horizontal (East − West) and net vertical (North − South) displacement, then apply Pythagoras. IBPS engineers 3-4-5, 5-12-13, 8-15-17 triples, so recognise them:

• net E–W = 3, net N–S = 4 ⇒ distance = 5 (no square roots needed).

4. Final direction

The end point's direction from the start is read off the net displacement:

• net East and net North ⇒ end is to the North-East of start.
• If asked "in which direction is the start from the end", it's the opposite (South-West here). Read the question carefully — start-from-end vs end-from-start are reversed.

5. The twists

• Coded direction: decode the symbol/word rule to plain N/S/E/W first, then sketch.
• Shadow/sunrise clues: at sunrise the sun is in the East, so a shadow falls to the West (and vice versa at sunset). Morning shadows point west; evening shadows point east.
• Angle turns other than 90°: occasionally "turn 45°" — handle by drawing the diagonal (NE/NW/SE/SW).
• Facing after multiple turns: track only the net rotation; two rights = 180° (a U-turn).

7. The protocol

1. Draw the compass and sketch each leg as a proportional arrow, turning from the current heading.
2. Net the displacements — East minus West, North minus South.
3. Direction = quadrant of the net displacement (careful: start-from-end reverses it).
4. Distance = √(net-horizontal² + net-vertical²); look for 3-4-5 / 5-12-13 triples.
5. For coded/shadow twists, convert to plain directions first, then sketch.