Among the questions that usually appear in the Logical Reasoning section are questions based on ‘directions’ that test your logical reasoning. These questions are easy to understand as they are a part of our day to day life. Directions are something that figures in our everyday conversation. All you have to do is brush up your awareness about the various directions on how to solve direction sense questions. The following steps will help you achieve that.
1. Get Acquainted with Directions
The first step to solve questions based on directions is to acquaint yourself with all the eight directions there are. Candidates will be well aware that there are four main directions, namely North, South, East and West, which can be represented as,
These four directions are fundamental to all other directions, namely North- East, North- West, South- East and South-West, which can be represented as,
Memorising these eight directions is essential to solve questions based on directions.
2. Concept of distance
The questions on directions in LR, mostly ask you to calculate distance between points. For instance, A man goes 5 kms East from point A and then takes a right turn from point B to move 6 kms to point C. What is the minimum distance between point A and point C?
The figure drawn for this question will be,
For such questions, it is assumed that these distances are along straight lines and between specified points. To solve such questions, you need to be aware of Pythagoras theorem, which states that in a right- angled triangle, Hypotenuse2 = Perpendicular2 + Base2 .
3. Points to keep in mind
- Always consider yourself as facing North. The left side will be West, right side will be East.
- Each direction change between the four main directions is equal to 900 in direction, whereas between the other four directions is 450.
- A person facing north, on taking left will face towards west and on taking the right turn towards east.
- A person facing west, on taking left will face towards south and on taking right turn towards north.
- A person facing east, on taking left will face towards north and on taking the right turn towards south.
- A person facing south, on taking left will face towards east and on taking the right turn towards west.
Clearly,
- Whenever a person moves to his left side, he will move towards anti- clockwise direction.
- Whenever a person moves to his right side, he will move towards clockwise direction.
4. Practice
Once you are armed with the awareness about the steps to be taken to solve the questions based on direction, all you have to do is practice various types of such questions. It is only with enough practice that you will become an expert in doing these questions quickly.
Direction questions are the easiest questions in LR. If the concepts of Direction, Distance and Pythagoras Theorem are clear to the candidates, they can score well in these questions.
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