Direction and Distance
About 6 min · Reasoning Ability · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 324 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
These problems test your spatial reasoning ability — tracking a person's movements through compass directions and calculating final positions or shortest distances.
Key ideas
- The Eight-Point Compass: North, South, East, West are cardinal directions. Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest are intermediate directions at 45° angles.
- Opposite Directions: North↔South, East↔West, NE↔SW, NW↔SE. If someone faces North and turns 180°, they face South.
- Right Turn Rule: Turning right from any direction moves you clockwise — North→East→South→West→North.
- Left Turn Rule: Turning left moves you anticlockwise — North→West→South→East→North.
- Shortest Distance: The straight-line distance between start and end points, calculated using the Pythagorean theorem when movements form a right angle.
Quick reference
- Compass clockwise: N → NE → E → SE → S → SW → W → NW → N
- Right turn = Clockwise 90°; Left turn = Anticlockwise 90°
- Shortest distance = √(x² + y²) where x and y are net perpendicular displacements
- Morning shadow points West; Evening shadow points East
- Always draw a rough diagram — start with North pointing up
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. Ramesh walks 15 m towards South from his house. Then he turns right and walks 20 m. After that, he turns right again and walks 15 m. In which direction is he now from his starting point?
2. A man starts from point A and walks 8 m towards East to reach point B. From B, he walks 6 m towards North to reach point C. From C, he walks 4 m towards West to reach point D. What is the shortest distance between point A and point D?
3. A person starts from point P and walks 15 m towards North. He then turns right and walks 8 m. After that he turns left and walks 5 m. Finally, he turns left and walks 8 m to reach point Q. What is the shortest distance between point P and point Q?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 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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