Order and Ranking
About 6 min · General Intelligence and Reasoning · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 432 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Order and Ranking problems test your ability to arrange people, objects or events in a logical sequence based on given conditions.
Key ideas
- Position from opposite end: If someone is nth from one end in a line of N people, their position from the other end is (N – n + 1).
- Total strength formula: When A is pth from top and qth from bottom, total number = p + q – 1. The subtraction of 1 accounts for counting A once, not twice.
- Overlapping ranks: When two people swap positions, or one person shifts, track both their original and final ranks carefully. The change in one person's rank directly affects calculations.
- Age-based ranking: When ranking by age (eldest to youngest), "older" means lower numerical rank. The eldest person is rank 1, not the highest number.
- Bidirectional counting: In circular or row arrangements, clearly distinguish "from left," "from right," "from top," "from bottom." Sketch a quick diagram with arrows to avoid confusion.
Watch out for
- Forgetting the "–1" in total formula → Students add rank from top and rank from bottom directly, counting the person twice. Fix: Always subtract 1 because that person is counted in both ranks. Total = p + q – 1, not p + q.
- Confusing "people between" with "positions apart" → If A is 5th and B is 10th, students say 5 people between them. Fix: Positions 6, 7, 8, 9 are between them = 4 people. Formula: |Rank_A – Rank_B| – 1.
- Wrong direction in age ranking → Treating eldest as highest number rank. Fix: Eldest = Rank 1 (smallest number). Youngest = highest rank number. Think "gold medal = 1st place."
Quick reference
- Opposite rank = Total – This rank + 1
- Total in line = Rank from one end + Rank from other end – 1
- People between = |Difference in ranks| – 1
- After swap: Update the person's position to their new location before calculating anything else.
- Age rank: Lower number = older person; Rank 1 = eldest.
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. In a row of 45 students, Ravi is 16th from the left end. What is his position from the right end?
2. In a class of 40 students, Priya ranks 12th from the top. Five students who ranked below her failed and were removed from the class. What is Priya's new rank from the bottom in the remaining class?
3. Among five friends P, Q, R, S, and T, P is older than Q but younger than R. S is older than T but younger than Q. Who is the second oldest?
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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