There are several types of questions in the logic and reasoning sections of the competitive exam. One such type is the floor-based puzzles that form a crucial part of the banking reasoning questions. Puzzle reasoning questions can appear not just in the preliminary rounds of the exams but also in the main round of the exams. The level of difficulty also rises with it. Therefore, it is essential to know about various tricks or techniques that can help you solve the puzzle’s reasoning question in as little time as possible.
Things to Remember Before You Attempt the Floor-Based Puzzles Reasoning Questions
Students must be in the right frame of mind before they begin to solve the puzzles for banking exams. Otherwise, the students will not be able to focus on essential clues hidden in the puzzles’ reasoning questions and will fail to solve them. It is easy to get lost in the seemingly elaborate statements in the banking reasoning questions. Some of the things one should remember to cultivate the right frame of mind or approach before attempting the puzzles are as follows:
- First and foremost, do not take the practice of puzzles for granted. The more you practice the puzzles’ reasoning questions, the more familiar you get with the pattern and themes of the puzzles.
- Carefully choose the statement that you use to begin to solve the puzzle.
- Group all the direct statements to not get confused.
- Be aware of assumptions!
- It’s okay to ignore a snippet of information if it is not making sense. You can always get back to it later.
- Please keep a lookout for gender-specific words like him, he, she, her. They can come in handy.
- The easiest way to solve a puzzle is to eliminate possibilities. Use the information given in the puzzles to construct combinations of possibilities and eliminate them.
- Solving puzzles requires focus, common sense and presence of mind.
Easy Tricks to Solve Floor-Based Puzzles
How one handles the information given in the puzzles’ reasoning questions determines how well they will be able to solve the question. Often the information in the puzzles comprises direct and indirect statements that are designed to confuse the students. Therefore, any trick or technique to solve the puzzles should be aimed at doing away with the confusion. Below are a few tricks that can help you do so for floor-based puzzles:
1) It cannot be stressed enough – read the given passage carefully. The aim of reading the passage is to organise the information given in the puzzle. Following are some of the aspects of the puzzle that you should focus on and note down:
- Any numbers and types
- Direct statements that a clear and concise
- Statements that are dependent on one another
2) Once you have noted all the critical statements, the next is to convert them into a form that you will be able to understand better. Usually, students can understand visual information much better than verbal or written one. Therefore, to turn the written information into a visual one, you take the help of diagrams like tables, circles, triangles, etc.
For instance, the written information is that Margaret lives on the floor between Tina and Jane’s floors, and Tina lives above Jane. The following is this information’s visual representation.
Tina
Margaret
Jane
3) The next thing to do is arrange the complete information, including the different factors, properly. The students can again arrange it in the form of a table. An example with made-up parameters is given below:
Factor 1: Individuals |
Factor 2: Floors |
Factor 3: Favourite Colours |
a |
1 |
Green |
b |
2 |
Yellow |
c |
3 |
Blue |
d |
4 |
Red |
4) The above table can be constructed for any puzzles by arranging statements in a logical order, which could include direct statements or factors that are dependent on each other.
5) Remember that the word “and” that connects two statements of the puzzles always adds more information to the first statement only, which is related to the first person.
6) When the word “which” connects two statements, it refers to the second person in the second statement.
7) Adjacent, in floor-based puzzles, never means opposite but right beside one another.
8) Another trick to solving floor-based puzzles is to assume oneself to be one of the individuals in the puzzle.
Conclusion
Puzzle reasoning questions can be challenging to attempt, but it is not something that cannot be cracked, especially in the case of puzzles for banking exams. With tricks and techniques that are easy to follow, including the presence of mind and arrangement of information in an orderly fashion, one can easily ace any banking reasoning questions of any difficulty. Floor-based puzzles are an essential part of the puzzles’ reasoning questions.
Therefore, the student should be familiar with the pattern of the questions. Students can do this only through practice. Hence, the most crucial trick to solving any puzzle’s reasoning questions, mainly floor-based puzzles, is that one has to keep practising. Practising floor-based puzzles of different difficulties will also make solving the banking reasoning questions easier.