Analogy Questions and Answers

Answer: D

'School' is related to Education.

A court is the institution through which justice is delivered; in the same way, a school is the institution through which education is delivered. The relationship is institution : its purpose.

A class, a student and a teacher are parts of a school, not its purpose, just as a courtroom, a litigant and a judge are parts of a court rather than justice itself.

Answer: A

The answer is Bottom.

The floor is the lowest surface of a room; the corresponding part of a river is its bottom, the bed on which the water flows. The analogy pairs a thing with its lower surface.

Fish and whales are creatures that live in water, and water is what a river carries, so none of them is the river's lower surface.

The same pattern appears in pairs such as Box : Base or Sea : Seabed, where the second word names the lowest surface of the first.

Answer: D

The pair with the same relationship is Rocket : Propellant.

Diesel is the fuel that a train burns to produce the power that moves it. In the same way, a propellant is the fuel that a rocket burns to drive itself forward. Both pairs are 'vehicle : the fuel that powers it'.

A wheel is a part of a car, not its fuel. Steam is produced by a boiler, the reverse direction of the relation. A pedal is the part of a bicycle through which the rider applies force, a part rather than a fuel. So the other three pairs have different relationships.

Answer: A

The pairs with the same relationship are I and II.

Oafish (stupid, clumsy) and astute (shrewd) are opposites, and so are simpleton and sage (I). A fine is the lighter penalty and imprisonment the heavier, just as a misdemeanour is the lesser offence and a felony the graver one (II).

Bail and bond are related ideas of security for release, not a lesser and a greater penalty (III), and wise and smart are near-synonyms, not opposites (IV).

Answer: C

The missing number is 400.

The rule linking 16 and 64 is: square the number and divide by 4. 16² = 256 and 256/4 = 64. Applying the same rule to 40: 40² = 1600, and 1600/4 = 400.

A simple multiplication by 4 would give 160, which is not offered, so the pair must be read through the squaring rule. 4 and 40 make the second term smaller than or equal to the first, and 4000 overshoots by a factor of ten.

Answer: A

NOTE corresponds to 27.

Add the alphabet positions and halve the total. PITY: P = 16, I = 9, T = 20, Y = 25, total 70, and 70/2 = 35.

NOTE: N = 14, O = 15, T = 20, E = 5, total 54, and 54/2 = 27.

54 is the total before halving, which is the most likely slip. 37 and 74 have no basis in either the sum or the half.

Answer: B

The related number is 90.

Each number is the product of two consecutive integers: 42 = 6 × 7 and 56 = 7 × 8, so 42 and 56 are consecutive terms of this pattern. Likewise 72 = 8 × 9, and the next term is 9 × 10 = 90.

81 is a square, and 92 and 100 are not products of consecutive integers following 8 × 9.

Answer: D

FNV is related to GOW.

BJR becomes CKS by moving each letter one place forward in the alphabet: B→C, J→K, R→S.

Applying the same rule to FNV gives F→G, N→O, V→W, which is GOW.

The other options do not follow the rule. ELS moves F and N backwards, CIQ moves every letter back by several places, and UNG reverses the order and changes the letters, so none keeps the +1 shift in each position.

Answer: B

The answer is Brush.

The relationship is professional and the instrument he works with: a doctor uses a stethoscope to examine patients, and a painter uses a brush to paint. The pair must keep the same relationship on both sides.

Painting is what the painter produces, not his tool; the matching term on the doctor's side would be something like a cure. Exhibition is where paintings are shown, and art is the field the painter works in. Neither is an instrument.

Answer: D

The answer is Bird.

Psychology is the study of the mind, and ornithology is the study of birds, from the Greek ornis, bird.

The study of mammals is mammalogy, the study of coins is numismatics, and Sanskrit is a language, not a subject of such a 'study of' pair.

Similar pairs often tested are entomology (insects), ichthyology (fish), herpetology (reptiles) and mycology (fungi).