UP Police Constable · Bite-size lessons
Ranking & Order
About 6 min · Mental Aptitude / IQ / Reasoning · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 370 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Ranking and Order questions test your ability to understand positions in a sequence and solve logical puzzles involving arrangements. In the UP Police Constable exam, these questions can take forms such as finding a person's rank from top or bottom, determining positions after rearrangement, solving age-based ordering problems, and analyzing linear or circular seating sequences.
Key ideas
- Position from Top and Bottom: If a person ranks Rth from top and Sth from bottom in a queue, total persons = R + S - 1. The "-1" accounts for counting the person twice.
- Position Interchange: When two people swap positions, their new ranks can be determined by careful tracking. If A (5th from top) and B (12th from top) exchange, A becomes 12th and B becomes 5th.
- Overlapping Information: When someone's position from both ends is given, you can calculate total members. When finding someone's new position after others leave/join, adjust the count accordingly.
- Age Ordering: Questions may ask you to determine relative ages based on comparative statements (A is older than B, C is younger than D). Draw a simple linear diagram with youngest on left, oldest on right.
- Seating Sequences: Linear arrangements (row seating) differ from circular ones. In linear: left-right matters and has endpoints. In circular: only relative positions matter, no fixed start/end.
Quick reference
- Total members = Rank from one end + Rank from other end - 1
- People between X and Y = |X - Y| - 1
- Draw simple diagrams—visual representation prevents errors
- After swapping, check what changes (position from top/bottom/left/right)
- Age problems: use inequality chains (A > B > C) on paper
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. Among five friends A, B, C, D and E, A is older than B but younger than C. D is older than E but younger than B. C is older than D. Who is the oldest among them?
3. In a queue, Amit is 7th from the front and Sumit is 9th from the back. If they interchange their positions, Amit becomes 15th from the front. How many people are there in the queue?
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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