Similarities and Differences Questions

Similarities and differences questions are a large portion of SSC and railway exams, so it is essential to understand how they work. These questions require a complex ability to understand one’s surroundings and analyse them actively. Moreover, it requires a lot of previous knowledge as you need to understand the common and uncommon points between items in the real world.

While it may require a mix of GK, vocabulary, problem-solving, and other skills, some tips can make these questions easier to solve. These can help you make sense of questions and better understand how to find the right answer.

Importance of similarities and difference questions

Before going into the tips and tricks to solve similarities and differences questions, it is essential to understand their importance. Like many other questions, similarities and differences questions require a combination of general knowledge and arithmetic skills to analyse and understand the similarities between a list of items.

For example, find the odd one out: 

• Delhi

• Mumbai

• Bangalore

• New York

Now, in this question, you are faced with 4 cities and have to find the one that doesn’t belong to the group. Now, to do so, you will initially have to recall and understand what category of items the 4 names belong to and then find the one that doesn’t fit into a certain subsection or criteria. In this case, it would be New York, which is not a city in India. However, to make this process easier, there are some tricks.

Tricks to solve similarities and differences questions

While the primary requirement of solving a similarities and differences question is to have a prior understanding of the items, some tricks can ease things out. These tricks will help you clearly define the common points and similarities between items in such questions. They are as follows:

• List out the characteristics.

If you are able to understand what the items in the list are but cannot find any differences between them, the best way to find the answer is by listing out prominent characteristics. This will allow you to gradually identify which one fails to meet a characteristic and can be considered the odd one out. Let’s suppose you have to find the odd one out from the following:

• Delhi

• Bangalore

• Pune

• London

It should be quite obvious that all the names are cities in this case. That being said, if you are unable to find the exact answer, you can start listing out common characteristics.

Doing this should lead you to one characteristic that clearly differentiates an option. In this case, it would be London which is in a completely different country.

• Make sure you have the right difference.

Many candidates make a common mistake when answering similarities and differences questions by finding the wrong difference and prematurely picking out an answer. This often happens because of the stress and time limit in exams that can cause you to answer the first thing that comes to mind.

A great trick to solve similarities and differences questions is to analyse and re-check the common and uncommon points you have used.

For example, in the above situation with cities, if you were to choose Bangalore as the odd one out for being the hottest city, this probably wouldn’t be the right answer. Instead, going through more options and finding the right answer will help you out.

• Find common points for pairs or triplets.

A difficult part of answering similarities and differences questions is the analysis of 4 individual options. This is because creating common links can be confusing if you are dealing with so many options. So, a trick that can make this easier is to look at 2 or 3 items at a time. This will help you find points that you can then compare.

For example, in the above cities option, if you look at all 4 items, you might notice many common points among a couple of them. However, if you look at the first 3 options and then the last one, it is easy to see that they are Indian cities while London is not.

Conclusion  

Similarities and differences questions are an integral part of the general intelligence and reasoning sections of various exams. They can be quite difficult, so these tips can make it easier to understand and find the right answers. Make sure also to improve your GK and arithmetic skills to make sure that it is easier to find common and uncommon points to solve the questions quicker.