SSC CGL Reasoning · Order, Ranking and Arrangement

Scheduling and Puzzles

Putting people or events in order from clues: dates a few days apart, who lives on which floor, and puzzles that match each place in the order with a second detail such as a profession.

All Order, Ranking and Arrangement notes

Why this matters

Twelve questions in the bank, all from the 2025 shifts: six EASY date and time-order questions, five floor puzzles (one of them HARD) and one HARD month-and-profession puzzle. The EASY ones take a line; the puzzles take a minute or more, so the method below is about not wasting that minute on a wrong first guess.

Concept 1 of 3: Dates and order in time, counted from the one fixed day

Date chains give one known date and a string of 'days after' and 'days before'. Put the known date on a number line and walk: after is a step forward, before a step back. Only the net walk matters.

Definition

'X was 3 days after Y' means X $=$ Y $+ 3$ . 'X was 1 day before Y' means X $=$ Y $- 1$ .
Start from the date you know and follow the chain to the one asked. Fast route: add the moves first ( $+3 - 1 = +2$ ), then apply the net move once.
Days strictly between two dates leave out both end days: between the 4th and the 8th are the 5th, 6th and 7th.
A printed list of dates is a lookup table: write it once in date order, then read off 'two days after X'.
With three events on three dates, place first the event with the strongest limit ('after' something cannot be first; 'not on the 11th').
A chronological-order question puts named periods on one time line, earliest first. The three early ages of human history run Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age.

Worked example

A fair in Agra was held 4 days after the fair in Mathura. The fair in Aligarh was held 2 days before the fair in Agra. If Mathura's fair was on 10th June, when was Aligarh's?

Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps

The same idea in a real exam question:

SSC CGL · 2025 · Tier I, 23 Sep 2025, Shift 3 · Q3Easy

Example 1 · Order, Ranking and Arrangement · Scheduling and Puzzles

The seminar in Nashik was held 2 days after the one in Surat. Indore's seminar was 3 days before the one in Surat. If the seminar in Indore was on

8^{th}

April, when did the seminar in Nashik happen?

Adding a 'before' instead of subtracting

'X was 3 days before Y' means X is 3 days earlier. If you know Y, subtract to get X; if you know X, add to get Y. Writing the clue as an equation first stops the slip.

Counting the end days as between

Between the 4th and the 8th there are 3 days, not 4 or 5. 'Between' leaves out both of the dates it names.

Drill 5 more on dates and order in time, counted from the one fixed day

Concept 2 of 3: Floor puzzles: fix the certain floors, then test each case

A floor puzzle is a column of numbered boxes. A few clues pin a person to one box; the rest only say how far apart two people are. Fill the pinned boxes first, then try each place an open pair could take and throw out the ones that break a clue.

Definition

1. Draw floors 1 (bottom) to the top as a column. 2. Place every absolute clue first: 'Khush lives on the 3rd floor', 'Dia lives on the lowermost floor'. 3. Then the clues tied to someone already placed: 'two floors between E and C' puts E three floors from C. 4. For a pair with no fixed floor ('Sudhir lives two floors above Dipak'), list every place the pair can go and test each against the clues left. Reject a case the moment one clue fails. 5. Words: n people between X and Y means they are $n + 1$ floors apart; just above means one floor up; in a 7-floor building, more than four people between two people can only mean five, at floors 1 and 7. 6. If two cases survive and give different answers, the answer is 'Cannot be determined'.

People between two floors

\text{between} = |x - y| - 1

$x, y$ the two floor numbers

Worked example

Five people P, Q, R, S and T live on floors 1 to 5 of a building, one on each floor, floor 1 at the bottom. R lives on floor 3. One person lives between R and T. P lives just below Q. Q lives above R. S does not live on the top floor. Who lives on floor 2?

Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps

The same idea in a real exam question:

SSC CGL · 2025 · Tier I, 18 Sep 2025, Shift 3 · Q11Moderate

Example 2 · Order, Ranking and Arrangement · Scheduling and Puzzles

Direction: Study the information carefully and answer the given questions. Eight People Tina, Raj, Dia, Viraj, Soma, Meena, Neha and Ria are living in an eight-storey building, but not necessarily in the same order. The ground floor is numbered 1 and the floor above it is numbered 2, and so on, until the topmost floor is numbered 8. Dia lives on the lowermost floor. Only three people live between Dia and Ria. Tina lives on the 4th floor. Only two people live between Tina and Raj. Only five people live between Viraj and Soma. Neha lives on an odd numbered floor. Only one person lives between Meena and Viraj. Who lives three floors below the one who lives immediate below Raj?

Reading 'two floors between' as two apart

If two floors lie between X and Y, they are three floors apart: floor 1 and floor 4, not floor 1 and floor 3.

Stopping at the first case that fits

Test every case an open pair allows. If two survive and give different answers to the question, the answer is 'Cannot be determined', and SSC prints that option for exactly this reason.

Drill 4 more on floor puzzles: fix the certain floors, then test each case

Concept 3 of 3: Order puzzles with a second detail: one grid for both

When each person also has a profession, a colour or a city, two puzzles are folded into one. Keep them on one table, a row for each place in the order, and every clue becomes a tick in a cell or a link between two rows.

Definition

1. Draw a grid: one row for each position in the order (a month, a day, a floor), with columns for the person and the second detail. 2. Number only the positions given, in order. If the months are January, March, April and May, March is position 2 and April is 'just after' March. 3. Place facts with a fixed position first ('the boxer is in March'), then chains joined to them ('the dentist is just before the boxer'). 4. Use the 'not' clues last, to choose between the cases that remain. 5. Read every answer off the finished grid; one grid answers the whole set. 6. A month fact SSC uses: April, June, September and November have 30 days; February has 28 or 29; the other seven months have 31.

Worked example

Four people K, L, M and N have meetings on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of one week, one a day. Each is a teacher, doctor, pilot or chef, one each. The doctor meets on Tuesday. The chef meets just after the doctor. K meets on Monday and is not the pilot. N is the pilot. L meets after M. Who is the teacher, and on which day does L meet?

Practice this conceptself-check · 3 quick reps

The same idea in a real exam question:

SSC CGL · 2025 · Tier I, 21 Sep 2025, Shift 3 · Q16Hard

Example 3 · Order, Ranking and Arrangement · Scheduling and Puzzles

Direction: Study the information carefully and answer the questions given below. Seven persons have to attend a seminar in seven different months i.e. January, March, April, May, July, August, September. Each of them works in seven different professions, i.e. Dentist, Surgeon, Police officer, Boxer, Journalist, Singer, and engineer but not necessarily in the same order. U is an engineer and attended the seminar on the month which has 30 days. Two persons attend seminars between U and the one who is a police officer. S attends the seminar just before the one who is a journalist. Three persons attend seminar between R and Q and both of them doesn't attend seminar either in March or May. The one who is a boxer attends the seminar just after the dentist. The one who is a surgeon attends the seminar just after the one who is an engineer. R attend seminar after U. Q and S both are not Police. Boxer attends the seminar in March. T attend the seminar after P but before V. Who attends the seminar in May?

Numbering the calendar instead of the list

When only some months are used, 'just after March' means the next month in the list. If the list skips April, the month just after March may be May.

Dropping a 'not' clue

Clues such as 'Q and S are not police officers' are often the only way to choose between two cases. Tick each clue as you use it, and check every unticked one before you answer.

Summary — formulas & gotchas at a glance

A revision cheat-sheet for the formulas and gotchas above. Click any concept name to jump back to its full explanation.

Formulas (1)

Floor puzzles: fix the certain floors, then test each case
People between two floors
$\text{between} = |x - y| - 1$

Watch out for (6)

Adding a 'before' instead of subtracting
→ Dates and order in time, counted from the one fixed day
Counting the end days as between
→ Dates and order in time, counted from the one fixed day
Reading 'two floors between' as two apart
→ Floor puzzles: fix the certain floors, then test each case
Stopping at the first case that fits
→ Floor puzzles: fix the certain floors, then test each case
Numbering the calendar instead of the list
→ Order puzzles with a second detail: one grid for both
Dropping a 'not' clue
→ Order puzzles with a second detail: one grid for both

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