Deloitte Aptitude Test Syllabus: Section-wise Topics

Deloitte’s campus aptitude test spans 95 minutes and covers three sections: Quantitative Aptitude, Logical Reasoning, and Verbal Ability. This article maps the full section-wise topic list for the Deloitte campus recruitment process. Worked solutions are in the aptitude questions article; this article is the syllabus reference.

Test Pattern at a Glance

Section	Questions	Time	Applies To
Quantitative Aptitude	25	35 min	Campus + Off-campus
Logical Reasoning	25	35 min	Campus + Off-campus
Verbal Ability	25	25 min	Campus + Off-campus
Programming Skills	25	Separate timer	Off-campus only

Key structural facts about the test:

• The three campus sections total 95 minutes (35 + 35 + 25).
• No negative marking applies to any section.
• Each section carries a separate minimum passing threshold. Meeting the aggregate score without clearing each section’s individual threshold does not clear the round. Confirm the current thresholds with your Training and Placement Officer before the drive.
• The test is online, proctored, and fully multiple-choice throughout.
• The Programming Skills section is separate and applies only to off-campus candidates. Campus drives at most colleges in the Tier-2 and Tier-3 belt run the three core sections only.

Quantitative Aptitude Syllabus

The Quantitative section runs 35 minutes and covers 14 topics at 10th-to-12th-standard mathematics level. No calculator is available during the online test, so mental arithmetic speed matters alongside formula recall.

Topics Covered

• Number Systems — divisibility rules, HCF and LCM, finding remainders, digit-based problems
• Averages — simple averages, weighted averages, impact of adding or removing a value from a dataset
• Percentages — percentage increase and decrease, population problems, price-change applications
• Simple Interest and Compound Interest — rate, principal, and time calculations; comparing SI and CI at the same rate over different periods
• Time, Speed, and Distance — relative speed, trains passing each other, boats and streams
• Geometry and Coordinate Geometry — areas and perimeters of standard shapes, basic coordinate-plane problems involving slopes and midpoints
• Logarithms — log identities, change-of-base simplification, solving log equations
• Quadratic Equations — finding roots by factorisation and formula; sum and product of roots relationships
• Probability — basic event probability, independent events, introductory conditional probability
• Permutation and Combination — arrangements vs. selections; factorial notation such as 5! = 120 and nCr appear in these problems
• Time and Work — work-rate problems, pipes and cisterns, efficiency comparisons
• Ratio and Proportion — direct and inverse proportion, partnership profit-sharing
• Alligation and Mixtures — combining mixtures of different concentrations or prices
• Profit, Loss, and Discount — cost price vs. selling price relationships, successive discounts, marked price

Time and Work, Ratio and Proportion, and Probability are the three highest-frequency topics across recent Deloitte campus drives. Cover those first. Coordinate Geometry and Logarithms appear less often; address them once you are confident in the core group.

The Deloitte aptitude questions article has ten fully worked examples across these topics, with corrected answers for questions where earlier prep resources carried arithmetic errors.

Logical Reasoning Syllabus

The Logical Reasoning section also runs 35 minutes and covers eight sub-types. Unlike the Quantitative section, this section requires no formula recall. It tests pattern recognition, rule-following, and structured deduction.

Topics Covered

• Pattern Recognition — visual and letter-based sequences; identify the next term in a series given the governing rule
• Data Sufficiency — a statement is followed by two conditions; determine which combination makes the statement provable without solving it directly
• Blood Relations — family tree problems; decode relationship chains from multi-step verbal clues
• Coding and Decoding — alphabetic shifts, symbol substitutions, word-encoding patterns where each letter maps to another value
• Number Series — arithmetic progressions, geometric progressions, and mixed-rule sequences where the gap itself follows a pattern
• Logical Word Sequence — arrange a set of words into a meaningful order based on a given rule (alphabetical, size, hierarchy)
• Seating Arrangement — circular or linear arrangements with defined constraints; identify who occupies which position
• Syllogisms — two or three premise statements followed by candidate conclusions; determine which conclusions necessarily follow

Seating Arrangements and Syllogisms consume the most time per question. Practise both with a target of 90 seconds per question. Number Series and Coding-Decoding yield answers faster once you recognise the encoding rule within the first two terms.

The Deloitte Logical Reasoning article covers all eight sub-types with worked examples.

Verbal Ability Syllabus

The Verbal section gives you 25 minutes for 25 questions, roughly one minute per question on average. Reading Comprehension passages take longer than grammar questions, so the effective time pressure on that sub-type is tighter than one minute.

Topics Covered

• Synonyms and Antonyms — vocabulary tested by selecting the correct meaning or its opposite from four options
• Contextual Vocabulary — fill-in-the-blank with the word that best fits the sentence tone and meaning
• Error Identification — locate the grammatically incorrect part of a sentence from four underlined segments
• Sentence Correction — choose the correctly rewritten version of a flawed sentence
• Sentence Improvement — select the version of the underlined clause that makes the sentence clearer or more grammatically accurate
• Subject-Verb Agreement — identify mismatches between subject number and verb form
• Tenses and Articles — correct tense sequencing across clauses; correct use of ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’
• Prepositions and Conjunctions — choose the correct connecting word or preposition to complete a sentence logically
• Reading Comprehension — a passage followed by two to three inference or detail questions; passage length is typically four to six sentences

Two tips for the Reading Comprehension sub-type specifically:

• Read the questions before the passage so you know which sentences to focus on.
• Each passage plus its questions needs to fit inside roughly three minutes; scan rather than read every word.

The Deloitte Verbal Test Questions article covers all nine sub-types with annotated practice questions and worked answers.

Programming Skills Syllabus (Off-Campus Candidates)

Campus recruitment drives at most colleges do not include the Programming Skills section. If you are applying through a scheduled campus drive, skip to the preparation section below.

Off-campus candidates face a separate Programming section. All questions are multiple-choice; you will not be asked to write code from scratch.

Topics Covered

• Data Types, Variables, and Operators — primitives, type casting, operator precedence, overflow behaviour
• Iteration, Recursion, and Decision Making — for and while loops, recursive call stacks, conditional branching
• Functions and Scope — call by value vs. call by reference, variable scope and lifetime rules
• Arrays and Linked Lists — indexing, traversal, insertion and deletion at different positions
• Trees and Graphs — traversal orders (in-order, pre-order, BFS, DFS), depth vs. breadth
• Stacks and Queues — LIFO and FIFO operations, practical applications such as expression evaluation
• Hash Tables and Heaps — key-value lookup mechanics, heap property and priority-queue use
• Searching and Sorting Algorithms — linear search, binary search, bubble sort, merge sort, quicksort; when each is appropriate for a given input size
• Polymorphism, Abstraction, and Encapsulation — OOP concept definitions and their application in code design
• Complexity Theory — Big-O notation; comparing algorithm efficiency for varying input sizes

Questions in this section typically give a short code snippet and ask about its output, or present two algorithm options and ask which handles the given input size more efficiently. Conceptual clarity matters more than syntax knowledge.

How to Prepare Across All Sections

The preparation sequence below applies to most campus placement candidates targeting the Deloitte test:

1. Start with Quantitative Aptitude. The 14-topic list is long, but the difficulty stays at moderate. Two weeks of daily 45-minute sessions concentrated on Time and Work, Ratio and Proportion, and Probability builds the foundation. Return to Coordinate Geometry and Logarithms in week three if time allows.
2. Move to Logical Reasoning second. Seating Arrangements and Syllogisms require more deliberate practice than Number Series. Start with those two sub-types and work back to the faster-to-learn ones.
3. Add Verbal Ability third. If your English base is solid, one week of daily reading comprehension practice and grammar drills is adequate. Subject-verb agreement and tense rules are where errors concentrate most.
4. Layer in Programming last (off-campus only). Once the three core sections are solid, cover Arrays, Linked Lists, Trees, and sorting algorithm comparisons first. OOP concepts follow naturally once data structures are clear.

Mock tests matter more than topic-wise drills once you have done a first pass through the full syllabus. A timed 95-minute practice test exposes time-management gaps that section-by-section drilling does not. IndiaBIX has a large free bank of aptitude questions organised by topic that works well for the initial topic-wise phase.

Deloitte’s logical reasoning section rewards systematic, rule-based thinking: identify the governing pattern, apply it consistently, verify the output before moving on. Pattern recognition and structured deduction are also foundational to working productively with AI tools. If the problem-solving discipline in this syllabus sparked interest in applying it beyond placement prep, TinkerLLM (₹299 at launch) is where you can put that same logical groundwork to work on real language model projects.