Top 30 Aptitude Questions for Placements (With Answers)

The night before your first placement test

Picture the placement cell hall at 8 in the morning. Two hundred chairs, one projector screen, and a test link that opens at 9. You have revised for weeks, but your xerox-shop notes run to 400 pages and half the formulas have not stayed in your head. One question keeps looping: what if the paper looks nothing like what you practised?

Nobody tells most students this: TCS, Infosys and Wipro all recycle the same pool of aptitude questions for placement with answers. The numbers change; the question type does not. See 30 good ones and you have seen the shape of almost every paper.

So here they are, grouped by topic with short working. Solve them twice this week and you will walk into that hall feeling like you have seen the paper before.

The 30 aptitude questions for placements that keep repeating

Each one below represents a question type from campus-drive papers. In the test hall you get about a minute per question, so the working is kept short.

Percentages and profit-loss

1. A number is increased by 25% and then decreased by 20%. What is the net change? Answer: 0% — no change. 1.25 × 0.80 = 1.00.
2. What is 40% of 250? Answer: 100. (0.40 × 250).
3. A product costs ₹800 and is sold at a 25% profit. What is the selling price? Answer: ₹1000. 800 + 25% of 800.
4. A shopkeeper sells a pen for ₹20 at a 25% profit. What was the cost price? Answer: ₹16. 20 ÷ 1.25.
5. The price of petrol rises by 20% and then falls by 25%. What is the net change? Answer: 10% decrease. 1.20 × 0.75 = 0.90.
6. A paper is out of 600 marks and the passing mark is 40%. How many marks do you need to pass? Answer: 240. 0.40 × 600.

Time, speed, distance and work

1. A car travels at 60 km/hr for 3 hours. How far does it go? Answer: 180 km. Speed × Time.
2. A train covers 240 km in 4 hours. What is its speed? Answer: 60 km/hr. Distance ÷ Time.
3. A train 120 metres long crosses a pole in 6 seconds. What is its speed? Answer: 72 km/hr. (120 ÷ 6) m/s, converted to km/hr.
4. A can finish a job in 10 days and B in 15 days. Working together, how long do they take? Answer: 6 days. (1/10 + 1/15) gives 30/5.
5. If 12 men complete a work in 18 days, how long will 8 men take? Answer: 27 days. Inverse proportion: (12 × 18) ÷ 8.
6. A car travels 90 km at 30 km/hr and then 60 km at 20 km/hr. What is the average speed? Answer: 25 km/hr. 150 km total ÷ 6 hours total.

Ratios, averages and mixtures

1. The ratio of boys to girls in a class is 3:2. If there are 20 girls, how many boys are there? Answer: 30. 10 per part × 3 parts.
2. Divide ₹1000 between A and B in the ratio 3:2. Answer: A gets ₹600, B gets ₹400. 5 parts total; ₹200 per part.
3. The average of 5 numbers is 40. The average of 4 of them is 35. What is the missing number? Answer: 60. Difference of the two totals: 200 - 140.
4. In a mixture the ratio of milk to water is 5:3. If there are 24 litres of water, how much milk is there? Answer: 40 litres. 8 litres per part × 5 parts.
5. The ratio of the ages of A and B is 3:4. If B is 24 years old, how old is A? Answer: 18 years. 6 years per part × 3 parts.
6. What is the average of the first five odd numbers? Answer: 5. 25 ÷ 5.

Reasoning: series, logic and puzzles

1. Find the next number in the series: 2, 4, 8, 16, ...? Answer: 32. Doubling each time.
2. Find the next number in the series: 3, 6, 18, 72, ...? Answer: 360. ×2, ×3, ×4, ×5.
3. If all cats are animals and some animals are pets, can some cats be pets? Answer: Yes. The statements allow the overlap.
4. If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, who is the tallest? Answer: A. A > B > C follows directly.
5. Four people are in a room. Each person shakes hands with every other person exactly once. How many handshakes is that? Answer: 6. n(n-1)/2 with n = 4.
6. A man is twice as old as his son. Twenty years ago he was twelve times as old as his son. How old is the son now? Answer: 22 years. Solving 2s - 20 = 12(s - 20).

Interest, probability and counting

1. Find the simple interest on ₹1000 at 5% per year for 2 years. Answer: ₹100. (1000 × 5 × 2) ÷ 100.
2. Find the compound interest on ₹1000 at 10% per year for 2 years. Answer: ₹210. 1000 × 1.10² - 1000.
3. What is the amount after 2 years if ₹2000 is invested at 6% simple interest? Answer: ₹2240. 2000 plus the interest.
4. What is the probability of rolling a 3 on a six-sided die? Answer: 1/6. 1 in 6 outcomes.
5. What is the probability of drawing an ace from a standard deck of 52 cards? Answer: 1/13. 4 out of 52.
6. In how many ways can a committee of 3 be formed from 7 people? Answer: 35. (7 × 6 × 5) ÷ (3 × 2 × 1).

Four formulas solve half this paper

Most of these thirty aptitude questions for placement with answers run on four formulas. Write them on your rough sheet before the test starts.

Distance ÷ Time. If A does a job in x days and B in y days, together they take (x × y) ÷ (x + y) days. Simple interest = (Principal × Rate × Time) ÷ 100. Compound amount = Principal × (1 + Rate/100)^Time.

Also remember: m/s × 18/5 = km/hr. Question 3 in the bank above lives on this one conversion.

What to do in the exam hall

Knowing these aptitude questions for placement with answers is half the game. The other half is exam-hall behaviour. Do the sure questions in the first pass. Most campus tests have no negative marking, so attempt everything, but never get stuck past 90 seconds on one puzzle. Read the last line of a word problem first; three lines of story usually hide one simple calculation. Keep rough work small and labelled, because in TCS and Infosys tests the timer moves section by section and you cannot go back.

Your seven-day plan before the test

Seven days is enough if you stop trying to read everything. Use these aptitude questions for placement with answers as revision material, pen in hand, not as reading material.

• Days 1 and 2: Percentages, ratios and profit-loss. These are the easiest marks, so get them solid first.
• Days 3 and 4: Time, speed, distance and work. Memorise the four formulas from the blockquote above.
• Day 5: Reasoning. Series, syllogisms and blood relations. Do not overthink these; the pattern usually shows itself in ten seconds.
• Day 6: One full mock test with a timer. The UniMate mock tests section has timed practice papers.
• Day 7: Revise only the questions you got wrong on day 6. Sleep early. Nothing you read at 2 AM will stay in your head.

The students who clear the aptitude round usually solved 50 questions five times, not 500 questions once.

Keep this list on your phone. Solve all thirty today, then only the ones you missed tomorrow.