u/Compelling_Demigod

I’ve been preparing for SSC CGL for a few months, and in the past, I also cleared JEE Mains and Advanced (barely 😅). One thing I’ve always noticed is how questions are framed and how, based on that framing, guessing can sometimes be a good strategy.

So, I decided to curate a list of a few observations on how you can try to guess answers in exams and see if they work for you. Try them out in PYQ mocks and see what works!

Many of you are probably already familiar with these tricks, please go through them and if you know something else, add them in the comments for others to see.

These are some points I consider while guessing:

1. Leave alone questions that are just straight up fact based, like who won the first Olympic gold medal, either we know it or we don't.
example -

either you know or you don't

2. But things change when answer has a pair of names of anything for example:
This question if from CGL 19 sept-shift-I

go for the one where repeating ones align

if you don't have any idea about this question, look at the option, (c) is twice in first column, (b) is twice in second column, (a) is twice in the third one, and in only one option do they coincide, that would be the best option to guess, and it actually is correct here.

similarly here when there are two components in options.

and another one on column matching form-

some principle different form

3. When 3 options are facing south and only one is to the North, example-

even if you don't have any idea what the question is asking, options can be treated as odd one out

odd one out type options occur very often, especially in English (specifically Vocab)

even when you know meaning of only 3 options, you can get the question correct.

4. If one option is noticeably longer and more explanatory than other option, go for it.

SSC is lazy and will not go lengths to engineer every option.

5. Be vary of extreme keywords

while guessing, look out for extremes like, only, all, none, etc

6. Logically correct

Logic dictates above all

Finally, these tricks are not fool-proof, so do practice with them, and improvise however they suit you.

Thank You!

When I started preparing for SSC CGL, I had a pretty hard time remembering all the fact-based stuff in GK, so I started making detailed notes for myself. For Geography, I specifically went with digital notes since maps make a lot more sense than just memorising endless lists of places and names.

They helped me quite a bit, so I thought I’d share them here in case they’re useful to someone else as well.

There are only 2 PDFs, but they cover pretty much everything related to:

Rivers, Lakes, Dams, Waterfalls, Mountain Ranges, Peaks, Passes, Hills and Plateaus.

I’ve also made the maps geographically representative of the actual locations. So, for example, rivers are shown flowing through the states/regions they actually pass through instead of just being marked somewhere on a map. I found this much easier to remember than learning everything as separate facts.

I’ve checked the information thoroughly and am pretty confident about the accuracy. Still, if anyone happens to notice something that needs a correction, do let me know.

I’ll probably make similar notes for a few other GK topics as well, and if they turn out useful, I’ll share those here too.

Hope these help someone with their revision :)

Notes:

1. Indian River System
   2. Mountain Ranges, Peaks and Passes