Reasoning, Mental Ability and Basic Numeracy

What the official syllabus says

RPSC, RAS/RTS Preliminary Examination, General Knowledge and General Science, under “Reasoning & Mental Ability”:

• Reasoning (Deductive, Inductive, Abductive):
  • Statement and Assumptions
  • Statement and Argument
  • Statements and Conclusion
  • Statement and Courses of Action
  • Analytical Reasoning/ Critical Reasoning
• Mental Ability:
  • Number /Letter sequences
  • Coding/Decoding
  • Problems related to Relations
  • Direction sense test
  • Logical Venn diagram
  • Ranking and Sitting Arrangement
  • Shapes and their sub sections
• Basic Numeracy:
  • Ratio, Proportion and Partnership, Profit and Loss
  • Percentage
  • Simple and Compound Interest
  • Perimeter and Area of Plane figures
  • Data Analysis (Tables, Bar diagram, Line graph, Pie-chart)
  • Mean (Arithmetic, Geometric and Harmonic), Median and Mode
  • Permutation and Combination
  • Probability (Simple Problems)

There is no separate aptitude paper in the RAS Prelims: these questions are part of the one General Knowledge and General Science paper.

Topics in detail

Types of reasoning

• Deductive reasoning: a conclusion that must follow from the premises (syllogisms)
• Inductive reasoning: a general conclusion from particular cases; strength of the generalisation
• Abductive reasoning: inference to the most likely explanation

Statement-based questions

• Statement and assumptions: identifying what is taken for granted
• Statement and argument: strong and weak arguments
• Statement and conclusion: what definitely follows
• Statement and courses of action: practical, relevant follow-up actions
• Analytical and critical reasoning: strengthening and weakening arguments, cause and effect, inference from passages

Mental ability

• Number and letter series: missing terms, wrong terms, alphabet positions
• Coding-decoding: letter, number, symbol and sentence coding
• Blood relations: family trees and coded relations
• Direction sense: distance and direction, shadows
• Logical Venn diagrams: representing classes and their relations
• Ranking and seating arrangement: linear, circular and grid arrangements
• Shapes and their sub-sections: counting triangles, squares and other figures; embedded figures

Basic numeracy

• Ratio, proportion and partnership; profit, loss and discount; percentage
• Simple and compound interest
• Perimeter and area of plane figures: triangle, rectangle, square, circle, trapezium
• Data analysis: reading tables, bar diagrams, line graphs and pie charts
• Mean (arithmetic, geometric and harmonic), median and mode
• Permutation and combination; simple probability

Working method

• Learn the rule behind each question type, then practise timed sets
• For data questions, read the units and the base year first
• Know the formulae for interest, area, averages, permutation and probability
• Remember the 1/3 negative mark per wrong answer: eliminate options before marking

Overlaps

Analytical and statistical skills help with the data and economics questions of Mains Paper I.