AMCAT Logical Questions: 6 Sample Questions with Solutions

AMCAT’s logical reasoning section measures three specific skills (deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning) and companies use the percentile score it generates as a first-pass filter before a recruiter reads your resume.

One framing note before the sample questions: every worked solution in this article is re-derived from first principles. Legacy AMCAT prep content online carries arithmetic errors that have propagated across platforms for years. Trust the working shown here, not cached answer keys from older prep sites.

How the AMCAT Logical Ability Module Works

SHL India runs the AMCAT platform and structures the logical ability module around three reasoning subtypes:

Reasoning type	What it tests	Typical question formats
Deductive	Drawing valid conclusions from given premises	Syllogisms, logical deductions
Inductive	Recognising patterns and extending them	Number series, letter series, analogies
Abductive	Inferring the best explanation from partial information	Blood relations, directions, coding-decoding

The module is adaptive. Your first few responses set the difficulty level, and the test adjusts subsequent questions based on your accuracy. A raw score alone tells you little; your percentile relative to the test-taker pool is what recruiters see. A full breakdown of which topics receive how many questions appears in the AMCAT syllabus guide.

Number Series and Pattern Questions

Number series questions give you a sequence and ask for the next (or a missing) term. The reliable approach: compute first differences, then second differences. Most exam-style series that look “tricky” turn out to be quadratic once you compute two levels.

Example 1: Find the next term in the series 3, 8, 15, 24, 35

• Step 1: Compute first differences: 8 - 3 = 5, 15 - 8 = 7, 24 - 15 = 9, 35 - 24 = 11
• Step 2: Compute second differences: 7 - 5 = 2, 9 - 7 = 2, 11 - 9 = 2 (constant, confirming quadratic pattern)
• Step 3: Next first difference = 11 + 2 = 13
• Step 4: Next term = 35 + 13 = 48
• Verification: The formula n(n + 2) gives 1×3=3, 2×4=8, 3×5=15, 4×6=24, 5×7=35, 6×8=48 ✓

Example 2: Letter series — find the next pair: AB, DE, GH, JK, ?

• Step 1: Identify start positions: A = 1, D = 4, G = 7, J = 10
• Step 2: Start positions form an arithmetic sequence with common difference 3
• Step 3: Next start position = 10 + 3 = 13, which is M
• Step 4: Next consecutive pair from M = MN
• Verification: Positions 1, 4, 7, 10, 13 map to A, D, G, J, M; each paired with the next letter ✓

Coding-Decoding and Letter Analogy

Coding-decoding questions give you one coded word and ask you to apply the same rule to a new word. The first step is always to isolate the transformation rule from the given pair.

Example 3: If MANGO is coded as OCPIQ, how is APPLE coded?

• Step 1: Map letter by letter: M(13) to O(15), A(1) to C(3), N(14) to P(16), G(7) to I(9), O(15) to Q(17)
• Step 2: Each letter is shifted forward by 2 positions in the alphabet
• Step 3: Verify the rule: every position difference is +2 ✓
• Step 4: Apply +2 shift to APPLE: A(1) to C(3), P(16) to R(18), P(16) to R(18), L(12) to N(14), E(5) to G(7)
• Answer: CRRNG

Example 4: ABCD is to BCDE as PQRS is to ?

• Step 1: Identify the transformation in ABCD to BCDE: each letter shifts one position forward in the sequence
• Step 2: A becomes B, B becomes C, C becomes D, D becomes E (a rolling +1 shift)
• Step 3: Apply to PQRS: P(16) to Q(17), Q(17) to R(18), R(18) to S(19), S(19) to T(20)
• Answer: QRST

Blood Relations and Direction Problems

Example 5: Blood relation

Question: “Pointing to a boy, Seema says, ‘He is the son of my father’s only daughter.’ How is the boy related to Seema?”

• Step 1: Identify “my father’s only daughter” — Seema’s father has one daughter, which is Seema herself
• Step 2: “Son of Seema” = Seema’s son
• Answer: Son

Common trap: the phrasing “my father’s only daughter” makes students look for a sibling. There is none. Read it as a description of Seema herself.

Example 6: Direction problem

Question: “Starting from point A, Suresh walks 3 km north, turns right, and walks 4 km. What is the shortest distance from point A?”

• Step 1: Track coordinates — starting at (0, 0), walks north 3 km: reaches (0, 3)
• Step 2: Turns right (east) and walks 4 km: reaches (4, 3)
• Step 3: Straight-line distance back to origin: √(4² + 3²) = √(16 + 9) = √25 = 5 km
• Answer: 5 km (due east of the starting point)

The 3-4-5 Pythagorean triple is the most common distance-problem setup in AMCAT. Recognising it immediately removes the need to calculate. You know the answer is 5 before finishing the arithmetic.

Syllogism and Deductive Reasoning

Syllogism questions give two or three statements and ask whether each conclusion follows necessarily from those statements. “Necessarily” is the operative word. A conclusion that could be true is not the same as one that must be true.

Example 7: Two-premise syllogism

Statements:

• All pens are books.
• All books are pencils.

Conclusions:

• (I) All pens are pencils.
• (II) All pencils are pens.

Working:

• Step 1: From the first statement, every pen belongs to the set of books
• Step 2: From the second statement, every book belongs to the set of pencils
• Step 3: By transitivity — every pen is a book, every book is a pencil, therefore every pen is a pencil. Conclusion I follows.
• Step 4: Conclusion II says all pencils are pens. The premises say nothing about pencils outside the book set. Pencils may include non-books, which may include non-pens. Conclusion II does not necessarily follow.
• Answer: Only Conclusion I follows.

The Venn-diagram check: draw three concentric circles (pens inside books inside pencils). Conclusion I describes a set containment that is visible in the diagram. Conclusion II would require pens and pencils to be the same circle, which the premises do not establish.

What Your Logical Reasoning Percentile Actually Means

AMCAT reports your score as a percentile within a comparison group, not as a raw marks count. Adaptive delivery means two students answering the same number correctly can receive different percentiles if their question difficulty levels differed.

Most IT service companies use AMCAT as an initial filter. The threshold varies by role and is revised each year. Check the AMCAT exam dates, fees, and eligibility page before registering; company-specific benchmarks and the current registration fee are listed there. The AMCAT previous papers and patterns article shows which topic areas have appeared most frequently across recent test cohorts, which helps you prioritise your practice time.

For the closest simulation of the actual adaptive delivery, myAMCAT offers timed section practice with the same adaptive format and a score report structured like the real AMCAT feedback card.

Where Logical Reasoning Connects to AI Hiring

Pattern recognition in number series and systematic deduction in syllogism are not just AMCAT prep skills. They are the same reasoning capacities that apply when you evaluate whether a language model’s output is logically consistent, or when you structure a multi-step prompt to get a reliable result.

Hiring teams at companies that use AMCAT are also beginning to assess whether freshers have any practical exposure to AI tools. The reasoning follows directly from what AMCAT already measures: if you can identify a pattern in a six-term series and apply it forward, you can learn to evaluate a model chain. The 2026 AI roadmap for Indian engineering students maps out how the logical foundations you’re building for AMCAT connect to the AI skills now showing up in fresher job descriptions.

At ₹299, TinkerLLM puts real LLM API calls in your hands. The series-pattern thinking from Example 1 and the deductive logic from the syllogism section translate directly into building and testing small prompt chains. The resulting micro-project is what you put on your resume when a recruiter asks what you have actually shipped.