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SSC CGL Direction & Distance

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This page covers SSC CGL Direction & Distance with complete concept notes, 37 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Direction & Distance— Rules & Concept

Core ConceptRead this first — the foundation of the topic

DIRECTION & DISTANCE — COMPLETE GUIDE FOR SSC CGL ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CORE CONCEPT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Direction and Distance questions test your ability to track a person's movement on a map. A person starts from a point, walks in different directions, and you must find either the final direction they are facing OR the straight-line distance from start to end. Think of it like plotting a path on graph paper. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

KEY RULES / PROPERTIES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1. The compass has 8 directions: North (N), South (S), East (E), West (W), North-East (NE), North-West (NW), South-East (SE), South-West (SW). 2. North is always at the TOP of your diagram.

3. Turning RIGHT = Clockwise rotation. Turning LEFT = Anti-clockwise rotation. 4. Opposite directions: North↔South, East↔West, NE↔SW, NW↔SE.

5. After a 180° turn, you face the exact opposite direction. 6. After a 90° right turn from North → you face East.

7. After a 90° left turn from North → you face West. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Formula BlockMemorise — at least one formula appears in every paper

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Straight-line (shortest) distance formula:

If a person walks X km in one direction and Y km in a perpendicular direction:

Shortest Distance = Square Root of (X squared + Y squared)
→ This is the Pythagoras Theorem.

For a 45-degree path (diagonal movement):

If both sides of the right triangle are equal (X = Y):
Shortest Distance = X multiplied by Root 2 (approximately X × 1.414)
Memory HookRemember this — never confuse the two again

for turns: North → Right turn → East → Right turn → South → Right turn → West → Right turn → North (full circle) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Exam PatternsWhat examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— WHAT GETS ASKED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL asks two main question types: Type 1 — Final Direction: "Which direction is the person facing now?" Type 2 — Final Distance: "How far is the person from the starting point?" Occasionally: "In which direction is the starting point from the final point?" — this is a reverse direction question. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SHORTCUTS & TRICKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Trick 1 — Cancel Opposite Movements: If a person walks 5 km North and then 3 km South, the net movement = 5 - 3 = 2 km North. Always cancel opposite direction distances before applying Pythagoras. Trick 2 — The Clock Trick for Turns: Imagine a clock. Clockwise = right turn. Anti-clockwise = left turn.

Start facing 12 (North). Right turn 90° lands you at 3 (East). Another right turn = 6 (South). This makes direction tracking fast. Trick 3 — Shadow & Sun Direction Shortcut: If the sun rises in East: Morning shadow falls to the WEST.

Evening shadow falls to the EAST. If a person faces North in the morning, his shadow is behind him to the West → shadow points West. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Worked ExampleSolve this step-by-step before moving on
1
Step 1

Draw the path. He goes 6 km up (North) and 8 km right (East).

2
Step 2

These two paths are perpendicular (at 90°).

3
Step 3

Apply Pythagoras: Distance = Root of (6² + 8²) = Root of (36 + 64) = Root of 100 = 10 km Answer: 10 km Pro Tip: 6-8-10 is a standard Pythagorean triplet. Memorise common triplets: (3,4,5), (6,8,10), (5,12,13), (8,15,17). ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 — DIRECTION QUESTION ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: Priya faces South. She turns right twice and then turns left once. Which direction is she facing now?

1
Step 1

Start = South.

2
Step 2

First right turn (90° clockwise from South) → faces West.

3
Step 3

Second right turn (90° clockwise from West) → faces North.

4
Step 4

Left turn (90° anti-clockwise from North) → faces West. Answer: West ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ NUMBER 1 MOST COMMON TRAP — READ THIS CAREFULLY ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The biggest mistake students make: They apply Pythagoras WITHOUT cancelling opposite directions first. Example — if a person walks 10 km North and 4 km South, the net is only 6 km North, NOT 10 km. If you use 10 km directly in the formula, you get the wrong answer. ALWAYS simplify net displacement in each direction before using Pythagoras. This trap catches almost 60% of students.

Key Points to Remember

  • Always draw a rough diagram — never solve Direction & Distance problems mentally without a sketch.
  • North is UP, South is DOWN, East is RIGHT, West is LEFT on every diagram.
  • Right turn = Clockwise rotation; Left turn = Anti-clockwise rotation — never swap these.
  • Shortest distance formula: Square Root of (Horizontal distance squared + Vertical distance squared) — Pythagoras Theorem.
  • Cancel opposite directions first: Net North-South = difference of North and South distances walked.
  • Key Pythagorean triplets to memorise: (3,4,5), (6,8,10), (5,12,13), (8,15,17) — saves calculation time.
  • A 180-degree turn always makes you face the exact opposite direction.
  • Morning sun is in the East — morning shadows fall towards the West (opposite to sun).
  • Two right turns = one 180-degree turn = you now face the opposite direction.
  • Reverse direction trap: 'Direction of start from end point' is always opposite to 'direction of end from start'.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • The shortest distance between two points after perpendicular movement is always calculated using Pythagoras: Root(X² + Y²).
  • Turning right four times (each 90°) brings you back to the original direction — a full 360° circle.
  • The sun rises in the East and sets in the West — this is the standard rule for all shadow-based direction questions in SSC.
  • If a person faces North and turns 90° clockwise (right), he faces East — this is the fixed compass sequence: N → E → S → W → N (clockwise).
  • A person facing East in the morning will have his shadow falling to the West (behind him, since sun is in East).
  • Two consecutive left turns from North = the person faces South (90° + 90° anti-clockwise = 180° total).
  • The diagonal (NE, NW, SE, SW) directions are at exactly 45° between the main cardinal directions.
  • If both perpendicular distances are equal (say X km each), the shortest distance = X multiplied by Root 2, approximately 1.414 times X.
Practice MCQs

Direction & Distance — Practice Questions

37graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 37

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Practice 1easy

Ravi starts walking towards North. He walks 5 km, then turns right and walks 3 km, then turns right again and walks 5 km. In which direction is he now facing?

Practice 2easy

Amit starts at point A facing South. He walks 12 km, turns left, walks 9 km, turns right, and walks 6 km. How far is Amit from point A (in km)?

Practice 3easy

Rajesh starts from his home facing North. He walks 8 km straight, then turns right and walks 6 km. After that, he turns left and walks 4 km. Finally, he turns right and walks 5 km. In which direction is Rajesh now facing, and how far is he from his starting point in the East-West direction?

Practice 4easy

Vikram walks 15 km North from his office. He then turns left and walks 8 km. After that, he turns right and walks 6 km. Finally, he turns left and walks 3 km. How far is Vikram from his office in the East-West direction?

Practice 5easy

Arun starts at point X facing East. He walks 10 km, then turns 90° clockwise and walks 5 km. He then turns 90° counter-clockwise and walks 6 km. What is his final position relative to point X?

Practice 6easy

Meera starts at point P facing South. She walks 7 km, turns right, walks 4 km, turns right again, and walks 9 km. In which direction is she now facing, and what is her total displacement from point P?

Practice 7easy

Priya walks 12 km North from point A. She then turns left and walks 9 km. Next, she turns right and walks 8 km. Finally, she turns left and walks 7 km. How far is Priya from point A in the North-South direction?

Practice 8easy

Vikram starts at point P facing North. He walks 4 km, turns left, walks 3 km, turns right, walks 2 km, and turns left again. In which direction is Vikram now facing, and what is his total displacement from point P?

Practice 9easy

Amit starts at point Q facing South. He walks 10 km, then turns right and walks 8 km. After that, he turns right again and walks 6 km. What is his final direction, and how many km is he from point Q?

Practice 10easy

Priya walks 5 km towards the East from point P. She then turns left and walks 3 km. Next, she turns right and walks 2 km. Finally, she turns left and walks 4 km. What is her final position relative to point P?

Practice 11easy

Rajesh starts from point A facing North. He walks 8 km, then turns right and walks 6 km. After that, he turns left and walks 4 km. In which direction is Rajesh now facing, and how far is he from point A?

Practice 12medium

Arun starts from point X facing East. He walks 12 km, then turns left and walks 9 km. He turns right and walks 7 km. Finally, he turns left and walks 5 km to reach point Y. How far is point Y from point X in a straight line?

Practice 13medium

Meera starts at point M facing North. She walks 6 km, turns right and walks 8 km. She then turns left and walks 5 km. After that, she turns right and walks 3 km, then turns left and walks 4 km to reach point N. In which direction is point N from point M?

Practice 14medium

Vikram starts at point V facing South. He walks 10 km, then turns left and walks 7 km. He turns right and walks 6 km. Finally, he turns left and walks 8 km to reach point W. What is the straight-line distance between V and W?

Practice 15medium

Priya starts at point P facing South-West. She walks 10 km forward, then turns 90° clockwise and walks 7 km. What is her final direction from point P?

Practice 16medium

Vikram starts at point A facing West. He walks 15 km, then turns right and walks 20 km. He turns left and walks 15 km. Finally, he turns right and walks 10 km to reach point B. In which direction is point B from point A?

Practice 17medium

Rajesh starts from point A facing North. He walks 8 km, then turns right and walks 6 km. After that, he turns left and walks 4 km. Finally, he turns right and walks 3 km to reach point B. In which direction is point B with respect to point A, and what is the straight-line distance between them?

Practice 18medium

Rajesh starts from point A facing North. He walks 8 km, then turns right and walks 6 km. After that, he turns left and walks 4 km. Finally, he turns right and walks 5 km to reach point B. In which direction is point B with respect to point A, and what is the straight-line distance between them?

Practice 19medium

Priya starts at point P facing Southwest. She walks 10 km forward, then turns 90° clockwise and walks 8 km. Next, she turns 90° counterclockwise and walks 6 km. What is her final direction with respect to point P?

Practice 20medium

Amit starts at point X facing East. He walks 12 km, then turns left and walks 9 km. He turns left again and walks 12 km. Finally, he turns right and walks 8 km to reach point Y. How far is point Y from point X?

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60-Second Revision — Direction & Distance

  • Remember: Always draw the diagram first — assign North=Up, South=Down, East=Right, West=Left before solving.
  • Formula: Shortest Distance = Square Root of (Net Horizontal² + Net Vertical²) — apply Pythagoras only after cancelling opposite directions.
  • Trap: Never use raw distances in Pythagoras — subtract opposite direction distances first (e.g., 10 km North and 4 km South = net 6 km North).
  • Trick: Right turn = clockwise; clockwise sequence is N → E → S → W → N. Two right turns = opposite direction.
  • Memorise triplets: 3-4-5, 6-8-10, 5-12-13, 8-15-17 — directly read the answer without calculation.
  • Shadow rule: Morning sun in East → shadow falls West. Evening sun in West → shadow falls East.
  • Reverse direction trap: If you end up North-East of start, then start is South-West of end — always flip for reverse questions.
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