Analytical Reasoning Tips (How to solve)

Analytical reasoning assesses your ability to articulate and support complex ideas, construct and evaluate arguments, and sustain a focused and coherent discussion. It does not assess specific content knowledge. Following are some basic questions with answers which can help you understand the analytical reasoning.

Analytical questions are based on a set of conditions or rules. The entire set of questions including its rules is called Analytical Reasoning problem.

Introduction to Problems

Each problem starts with a few introductory sentences describing the specific situation. The introduction will suggest what you are being asked to do with the particular problem.

Conditions or Rules

The introductory paragraph is following several short statements, called rules and these must be followed. These rules or condition define certain criteria before you start to answers the analytical reasoning problems. The conditions must be followed for all the questions.

Types of Conditions

There are three basic types of conditions:

Isolated Conditions: A condition that fixes a rule to a single entity and does not depend upon any other entity of the problem, for example, Mr. A stays at home and me at the hotel.

Linked Conditions: Some conditions linked to two or more entities, for example, Mr. A and I always sit next to each other.

Implied Link Conditions: The relations which are not stated in the conditions are implied by and deduced from the stated set, for example, if one condition about boxes placed on shelf states that in condition 1, box-1 is to the left of box-2 and in condition 2, box-4 is to the left of box-1, then it can be deduced box-2 is to the left of box-4.

Types of Questions

Questions asked, can be of following types.

Ranking: In these kinds of questions you are asked to place the people or object in some order according to some kind of ranking, for examples, grades assigned in the exam, age of persons, and finishing order in a race.

Distributing: These are similar to ranking problems with the exception that you will not always have a simple linear arrangement for ordering the people or objects. For example, placement of cars in multi-level parking, and arranging business into office spaces in a building.

Scheduling: It generally requires you to arrange a schedule of some event. You might be organizing the schedule of television shows during nights of the week.

Networks: These kinds of problems give you a series of links between people, places or objects. For example, towns connected by a series of roads.

Topologies or Maps: It usually requires you to arrange certain people or places in a geographical arrangement, it may be a central location. For example, colleges around the city and cities around the state.

General Types of Questions: There can be some general type of questions also, for example like some performance of some task, grouping of objects or sequencing etc.

For example, an analytical reasoning problem is given here:

7 persons live in a street, having houses in line. Consider the following:
1. A lives in the corner’s house
2. C is between E and G
3. There is 1 house between D and F
4. F is neighbor of G
5. There are two houses between A and G

Q.1. Who lives in the second corner?
(A) B
(B) C
(C) D
(D) E
(D) F

Q. 2. Who lives in the middle?
(A) C
(B) D
(C) E
(D) F
(E) G

Q.3. Who lives between B and G?
(A) C
(B) D
(C) E
(D) F
(E) G

Q.4. __________ is neighbor of A?
(A) B
(B) C
(C) E
(D) F
(E) G

Q.5. There are __________ houses between B and E?
(A) 0
(B) 1
(C) 2
(D) 3
(E) 4

Answers and Explanation
Note down the given information
NOTE: 7 persons live in a street
So, we can draw 7 lines: ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
1. A lives in the corner’s house
So, there are two possibilities:
_A_ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ OR ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _A_
2. C is between E and G
Here, also two possibilities:
_E_ _C_ _G_ OR _G_ _C_ _E_
3. There is 1 house between D and F
Two possibilities: _D_ ___ _F_ OR _F_ ___ _D_
4. F is neighbor of G
_F_ _G_ OR _G_ _F_
5. There are two houses between A and G
_A_ ___ ___ _G_ OR _G_ ___ ___ _A_
Now gather the given information
Two houses between A and G: _A_ ___ ___ _G_ ___ ___ ___
C is between E and G: _A_ _E_ _C_ _G_ ___ ___ ___
F is neighbor of G: _A_ _E_ _C_ _G_ _F_ ___ ___
1 house between D and F: _A_ _E_ _C_ _G_ _F_ ___ _D_
And finally: _A_ _E_ _C_ _G_ _F_ _B_ _D_
Check whether all the given information is true or not
Answers:
1. (C)
2. (E)
3. (D)
4. (C)
5. (D)