MH Police Bharti · Bite-size lessons

Classification

About 6 min · Intellectual Test (Reasoning) · English

Time worked out from the lesson's 334 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.

Classification is a reasoning topic in the Maharashtra Police Bharti exam. The concept is simple: you are given a group of items (words, numbers, letters, or figures), and you must identify the one that does not belong with the others. This tests your ability to quickly recognise common properties and spot the exception.

Key ideas

• Classification principle: All but one of the four or five items share a common property; exactly one item lacks that property and is the "odd one out."
• Verbal classification: Words grouped by meaning (fruits, metals, rivers), grammatical category (verbs vs nouns), origin, or thematic relation.
• Numerical classification: Numbers grouped by mathematical property—prime, even, odd, perfect square, divisible by a certain number, or following a pattern.
• Letter/Alphabet classification: Letters grouped by position (vowels, consonants), position in alphabet (odd/even positions), or pattern in letter codes.
• Figural classification: Shapes grouped by number of sides, open/closed figures, shading, rotation direction, or presence of specific elements.

Watch out for

• Choosing the first difference you see → Always verify that three or four items share one property and only one item differs. Check all options before finalising.
• Ignoring mathematical properties for numbers → Students often look only at odd/even. Also check: prime, composite, perfect square, perfect cube, divisibility by 3/7/11.
• Confusing alphabet position with letter itself → "E is odd" is wrong thinking. E is at position 5, which is odd. The letter E itself is a vowel. Know what property the question tests.

Quick reference

• Odd one out = the item that breaks the common pattern.
• Verbal: Think category (fruit/vegetable, country/city, mammal/reptile).
• Numbers: Check prime, square, cube, even/odd, divisibility.
• Letters: Check vowel/consonant, position (odd/even), gap between letters.
• Figures: Count sides, check open/closed, note shading and rotation.

Check yourself: 3 questions

This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 21 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.

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