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SSC CGL Floor-Based Puzzle

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This page covers SSC CGL Floor-Based Puzzle with complete concept notes, 22 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Floor-Based Puzzle— Rules & Concept

1.Core Concept

Read this first — the foundation of the topic
Rule 2

'Above' means a higher floor number. 'Below' means a lower floor number

Rule 3

'Immediately above' means exactly one floor higher. 'Immediately below' means exactly one floor lower

Rule 4

'Between' means floors in the middle — count the gap carefully

Rule 5

One person per floor unless the question says otherwise. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

2.Formula Block

Memorise — at least one formula appears in every paper
Floors Between A and B = Difference in floor numbers MINUS 1
Example: A on Floor 6, B on Floor 2 → Floors between = 6 - 2 - 1 = 3 floors between them
Total possible arrangements for N people on N floors = N! (N factorial)
Gap Formula: If A is X floors above B → Floor(A) = Floor(B) + X

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

But clues reduce this to 1 correct arrangement.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

3.Exam Patterns

What examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— WHAT GETS ASKED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL always asks these question types from floor puzzles: → Who lives on Floor 3? (Direct position) → How many people live between A and B? (Gap counting) → Who lives immediately above/below person X? → Which floor does the doctor/engineer live on? (Profession + floor combo) Floor puzzles in SSC CGL usually have 5 to 8 floors. Most common is 6-floor or 7-floor puzzles. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

4.Shortcuts

Use these to save 30–60 seconds per question
TRICK 2 — ELIMINATION BOX

Draw a grid. Rows = Floors, Columns = People. Put a tick when confirmed, cross when eliminated. This prevents confusion

TRICK 3 — NEGATIVE CLUE FIRST

Clues that say 'A does NOT live on Floor 1' are elimination clues. Use them to remove wrong options fast. This saves 30-40 seconds per puzzle. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

5.Worked Example

Solve this step-by-step before moving on
1
Step 1

Place fixed people first. D → Floor 5, E → Floor 1

2
Step 2

Remaining floors for A, B, C = Floors 2, 3, 4 A is on an even floor → A can be Floor 2 or Floor 4. But A is NOT on Floor 4 (Clue v) → A is on Floor 2.

3
Step 3

Remaining floors for B and C = Floors 3 and 4. B is immediately above C → B = Floor 4, C = Floor 3. FINAL ANSWER: Floor 5 → D Floor 4 → B Floor 3 → C Floor 2 → A Floor 1 → E ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 (6-Floor Building with Professions) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ People: P, Q, R, S, T, U on Floors 1 to 6 Professions: Doctor, Engineer, Teacher, Lawyer, Banker, Pilot Clues: (i) The Doctor lives on Floor 6. (ii) P is a Lawyer and lives 3 floors above S. (iii) Q is the Pilot and lives on Floor 2. (iv) R lives immediately below the Doctor. (v) T lives on Floor 1. (vi) U is the Engineer.

1
Step 1

R is immediately below Doctor (Floor 6) → R is on Floor 5.

2
Step 2

Q is on Floor 2, T is on Floor 1. Remaining floors for P, S, U = Floors 3 and 4 (and one more — let us check). Used floors: 1(T), 2(Q), 5(R), 6(Doctor). Remaining: Floors 3 and 4 for P, S, U — wait, that is 3 people for 2 floors. Check: P lives 3 floors above S. Possible pairs: S=Floor 1, P=Floor 4 → But Floor 1 is T. So S=Floor 3, P=Floor 6? Floor 6 is Doctor, P is Lawyer — contradiction. Try: S=Floor 1 is taken. S=Floor 2 is Q. So S=Floor 3, P=Floor 6 — not valid (P is Lawyer, Floor 6 is Doctor). Revise: S on Floor 1 is T's floor — eliminate. Try S=Floor 3, P=Floor 6 — invalid. Try S=Floor 4, P=Floor 7 — no Floor 7. Correct pair: P=Floor 4, S=Floor 1 — but T is Floor 1. Conflict. Final valid check: S on Floor 3, P cannot be 6. So the Doctor on Floor 6 must be R's neighbour. Reassign: P=Floor 4, S=Floor 1 means S and T clash → The puzzle has T on Floor 1 and S must adjust. Here U fills Floor 3, S fills a remaining slot. Note to student: When a contradiction appears, recheck if a clue applies to a person or a profession. This is the most common

6.Exam Traps

Common mistakes students make — avoid these

Always verify each clue twice. FINAL LAYOUT: Floor 6 → Doctor (R is on 5, so Doctor is someone else — U or P. U is Engineer, P is Lawyer. So Doctor = Q?

But Q is Pilot. So Doctor = S or T. T is on Floor 1.

So Doctor = S → S on Floor 6, P = Floor 6 - 3 = Floor 3.) Revised Final Answer: Floor 6 → S (Doctor) Floor 5 → R Floor 4 → U (Engineer) Floor 3 → P (Lawyer) Floor 2 → Q (Pilot) Floor 1 → T ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMON MISTAKE — THE NUMBER 1 TRAP ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Most students confuse 'above' with 'immediately above'. ABOVE simply means any higher floor. IMMEDIATELY ABOVE means exactly one floor higher — no gap allowed.

This single confusion leads to wrong answers in 60% of floor puzzle mistakes. Always underline the word 'immediately' when you see it in a clue.

Key Points to Remember

  • Floor 1 is always the BOTTOM floor and the highest number is the TOP floor in any building puzzle.
  • ABOVE = higher floor number; BELOW = lower floor number — never reverse this.
  • Immediately above/below = exactly ONE floor gap, no more, no less.
  • FORMULA: Floors between A and B = (Higher floor number) - (Lower floor number) - 1.
  • FORMULA: If A is X floors above B, then Floor(A) = Floor(B) + X.
  • ANCHOR METHOD: Always place the person with a directly fixed floor first, then build around them.
  • Elimination Grid Trick: Draw a tick-cross table (floors vs people) to avoid confusion in multi-clue puzzles.
  • Negative clues ('A is NOT on Floor 1') eliminate wrong options fast — always use them first.
  • In profession+floor combos, match the profession clue before placing the person — avoid the Doctor/Person mix-up trap.
  • Total arrangements for N people on N floors = N factorial (N!) — clues reduce this to exactly 1 solution.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • Floor-based puzzles appear in almost every SSC CGL Tier-1 paper, usually as a set of 3-5 questions from one puzzle.
  • The most common floor puzzle in SSC CGL uses 6 floors or 7 floors with 6 or 7 people.
  • The phrase 'immediately above' means exactly 1 floor difference — this is the most tested vocabulary distinction in floor puzzles.
  • Floors between Floor 2 and Floor 6 = 6 - 2 - 1 = 3 floors (Floors 3, 4, 5) — apply the minus-1 formula always.
  • In SSC CGL 2023 and 2024 papers, floor puzzles were combined with professions or objects, making them 2-variable puzzles.
  • If A is 3 floors above B and B is on Floor 2, then A is on Floor 5 — use the direct addition formula.
  • The word 'between' in floor puzzles is EXCLUSIVE — it does not include the floors where the two reference persons sit.
  • For a 5-floor building, total possible arrangements = 5! = 120, but puzzle clues narrow it down to exactly 1 valid arrangement.
Practice MCQs

Floor-Based Puzzle — Practice Questions

22graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 22

All MCQs →
Practice 1easy

Five boxes—P, Q, R, S, and T—are stacked vertically on 5 shelves (Shelf 1 at bottom, Shelf 5 at top). The following conditions apply: (i) R is not on Shelf 1. (ii) Q is exactly 2 shelves above P. (iii) S is on Shelf 4. (iv) T is immediately below R. Which box is on Shelf 1?

Practice 2easy

Five employees—M, N, O, P, and Q—work on five different floors (1 to 5) of an office building. Determine who works on Floor 4 using the clues below. Clue 1: M works on Floor 2. Clue 2: O works on a floor immediately below N. Clue 3: P works on Floor 5. Clue 4: Q works on Floor 1.

Practice 3easy

Six people—A, B, C, D, E, and F—live in a building with 6 floors (1 to 6, where 1 is the ground floor). Each person lives on a different floor. Based on the following clues, who lives on Floor 3? Clue 1: A lives on an odd-numbered floor. Clue 2: B lives immediately above C. Clue 3: D lives on Floor 1. Clue 4: E lives on Floor 6. Clue 5: F lives on Floor 4. Clue 6: C lives on Floor 2.

Practice 4easy

Seven employees—A, B, C, D, E, F, and G—work on seven different floors of an office building (Floors 1 to 7). Based on the following clues, who works on Floor 4? Clue 1: A works on Floor 1. Clue 2: C works on an even-numbered floor. Clue 3: E works on Floor 7. Clue 4: B works immediately above D. Clue 5: F works on Floor 4.

Practice 5easy

Five friends—P, Q, R, S, and T—live on five different floors of an apartment building (Floors 1–5, where 1 is the lowest). Based on the clues below, who lives on Floor 2? Clue 1: P lives on Floor 1. Clue 2: Q lives on an odd-numbered floor. Clue 3: R lives immediately below S. Clue 4: T lives on Floor 5. Clue 5: Q does not live on Floor 5. Who lives on Floor 2?

Practice 6easy

Four people—M, N, O, and P—live on four different floors of a building (Floors 1–4). Based on the clues below, who lives on Floor 2? Clue 1: M lives on Floor 1. Clue 2: O lives on an even-numbered floor. Clue 3: N lives immediately above M. Clue 4: P lives on the highest floor. Who lives on Floor 2?

Practice 7easy

Four people—W, X, Y, and Z—live on 4 different floors of a building (Floors 1–4, with 1 being the lowest). The following conditions apply: (i) W lives on Floor 2. (ii) Y lives on a higher floor than W. (iii) Z lives on the lowest floor among Y and Z. (iv) X lives on Floor 4. Who lives on Floor 3?

Practice 8easy

Six boxes—M, N, O, P, Q, and R—are placed on 6 shelves (Shelf 1 at the bottom, Shelf 6 at the top). The following conditions apply: (i) O is on Shelf 3. (ii) M is on a shelf with an even number. (iii) N is immediately above M. (iv) P is on Shelf 6. (v) Q is on a shelf lower than O. Which box is on Shelf 2?

Practice 9easy

Six people—A, B, C, D, E, and F—live in a 6-floor building, one person per floor (Floor 1 is the ground floor). The following conditions apply: (i) A lives on an even-numbered floor. (ii) B lives immediately above C. (iii) D lives on Floor 3. (iv) E lives on a floor higher than D but lower than F. (v) F lives on Floor 6. Who lives on Floor 2?

Practice 10easy

Six people—W, X, Y, Z, U, and V—live on six different floors (Floors 1–6). Based on the clues below, who lives on Floor 5? Clue 1: W lives on Floor 1. Clue 2: Z lives on Floor 6. Clue 3: X lives on an even-numbered floor. Clue 4: Y lives immediately below U. Clue 5: V lives on Floor 3. Who lives on Floor 5?

Practice 11easy

Seven students—A, B, C, D, E, F, and G—sit on 7 floors of a hostel building (Floors 1–7, with 1 at the bottom). The following conditions apply: (i) C sits on Floor 4. (ii) A sits on an odd-numbered floor. (iii) B sits immediately above A. (iv) D sits on a floor higher than C but lower than F. (v) F sits on Floor 7. (vi) E and G sit on Floors 2 and 5 (in some order). Who sits on Floor 3?

Practice 12easy

Four friends—P, Q, R, and S—live on four different floors of a building (Floors 1, 2, 3, and 4). Using the clues below, determine who lives on Floor 2. Clue 1: P does not live on Floor 1 or Floor 4. Clue 2: Q lives on a floor higher than R. Clue 3: S lives on Floor 1. Clue 4: R lives on Floor 3.

Practice 13medium

Six persons — Aman, Bina, Chand, Dev, Ekta and Fiza — live on six different floors of a building numbered 1 (lowest) to 6 (highest). Aman lives on an even-numbered floor above floor 4. Bina lives on floor 2. Chand lives immediately above Dev. Fiza lives on floor 3. Dev lives on floor 4. Ekta lives on the floor immediately below Bina. Who lives on floor 5?

Practice 14medium

Six people — A, B, C, D, E, and F — live in a building with 6 floors (1 to 6, where 1 is the ground floor). Each person lives on a different floor. Based on the following clues, who lives on floor 4? Clues: 1. A lives on an odd-numbered floor. 2. B lives immediately above C. 3. D lives on floor 2. 4. E lives on a floor higher than F. 5. F lives on floor 5. 6. C lives on floor 3.

Practice 15medium

Seven boxes — P, Q, R, S, T, U, and V — are stacked on 7 shelves (numbered 1 to 7 from bottom to top). Each box is on a different shelf. Based on the clues below, which box is on shelf 5? Clues: 1. P is on shelf 3. 2. Q is on a shelf higher than P. 3. R is on shelf 1. 4. S is on shelf 2. 5. T is exactly 2 shelves above S. 6. U is on a shelf lower than V. 7. V is on shelf 6.

Practice 16medium

Eight people — A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H — live on 8 floors of a building (1 to 8, where 1 is ground floor). Each person lives on a different floor. Based on the clues, who lives on floor 6? Clues: 1. A lives on floor 1. 2. B lives on an even-numbered floor. 3. C lives on floor 3. 4. D lives on a floor higher than C but lower than F. 5. E lives on floor 8. 6. F lives on floor 7. 7. G lives on a floor lower than D. 8. H lives on floor 2.

Practice 17medium

Five boxes — W, X, Y, Z, and M — are placed on 5 shelves (numbered 1 to 5 from bottom to top). Each box is on a different shelf. Based on the clues, which box is on shelf 3? Clues: 1. W is on shelf 1. 2. X is on a shelf higher than W but lower than Z. 3. Y is on shelf 5. 4. Z is on a shelf higher than X. 5. M is on shelf 2.

Practice 18medium

Six people — P, Q, R, S, T, and U — live on 6 floors (1 to 6, where 1 is ground floor). Each person lives on a different floor. Based on the clues, who lives on floor 4? Clues: 1. P lives on floor 2. 2. Q lives on an odd-numbered floor. 3. R lives on floor 1. 4. S lives on a floor higher than P but lower than T. 5. T lives on floor 6. 6. U lives on a floor lower than S.

Practice 19medium

Six people — A, B, C, D, E, and F — live in a building with 6 floors (1 to 6, where 1 is the ground floor). Each person lives on a different floor. Based on the following clues, who lives on floor 4? 1. A lives on an odd-numbered floor. 2. B lives immediately above C. 3. D lives on floor 2. 4. E lives on a floor higher than F. 5. F lives on floor 5. 6. C lives on floor 3. Who lives on floor 4?

Practice 20medium

Seven employees — P, Q, R, S, T, U, and V — work on different floors of an office building (floors 1 to 7). The following conditions must be satisfied: 1. P works on floor 3. 2. Q works on a floor immediately below R. 3. S works on an even-numbered floor. 4. T works on floor 6. 5. U works on a floor higher than T. 6. V works on floor 1. 7. R works on a floor higher than P. On which floor does Q work?

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60-Second Revision — Floor-Based Puzzle

  • Remember: Floor 1 = Bottom, Highest number = Top. Never flip this — it causes instant wrong answers.
  • Formula: Floors BETWEEN A and B = Big floor number - Small floor number - 1. Always subtract 1.
  • Formula: A is X floors above B means Floor(A) = Floor(B) + X. Use direct addition.
  • Trap: Do NOT confuse 'above' (any higher floor) with 'immediately above' (exactly 1 floor higher). Underline the word 'immediately' in the question.
  • Trick: Use the ANCHOR METHOD — fix the person whose floor is directly stated, then place others around them step by step.
  • Trick: Use NEGATIVE clues first (e.g., 'A is not on Floor 1') to eliminate wrong floors quickly and save time.
  • Remember: In profession+floor puzzles, match the profession to the floor clue FIRST before assigning the person — this prevents the most common confusion trap.
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