Analogy Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The answer is Steredian (steradian).

The pascal is the SI unit of pressure. The SI unit of solid angle is the steradian (the paper spells it 'Steredian'), the three-dimensional counterpart of the radian.

The radian and the degree measure plane angles, not solid angles, and centigrade is an old name for the Celsius temperature scale.

Answer: A

The answer is SpaceX.

The pairing is founder : company. Greg Wyler (printed Weyler) founded OneWeb, the low-earth-orbit satellite internet company. Elon Musk founded SpaceX, whose Starlink is a rival constellation.

CNSA is China's national space agency, ESA is the European Space Agency, and TCS is Tata Consultancy Services; none was founded by Musk.

Answer: A

The matching pair is Square : Octagon.

A triangle has 3 sides and a hexagon 6, so the second figure has twice the number of sides of the first. A square has 4 sides and an octagon 8, the same relationship.

Triangle : Angle relates a figure to a part of it. Circle : Cuboid pairs a plane figure with a solid. Rectangle : Pentagon is 4 sides to 5, an increase of one rather than a doubling.

Answer: D

The keyed pair is Predecessor : Successor.

'Before' and 'after' express the general relation of what comes earlier to what comes later. A predecessor is one who comes before and a successor one who comes after, so the pair expresses exactly that relation in noun form, and like 'before : after' it is a pair of exact opposites in sequence.

'First : Second' are adjacent positions in a count rather than opposites, 'Past : Present' stops at the present rather than what follows, and 'Historic : Contemporary' contrasts importance in history with being current, not order.

Answer: D

The answer is (D).

In the first pair three changes occur: the small shape below (a flat ellipse) is enlarged, turned through 90 degrees and becomes the outer frame; the inner triangle is turned upside down; and the original outer shape (the circle) shrinks to become the innermost element.

Apply the same changes to the second figure: the small upright rectangle below becomes a large horizontal rectangle frame, the upward-pointing arrow-pentagon is inverted to point down, and the original square shrinks to a small square inside it. That is figure (D).

(A) and (C) keep a tall frame, so the rectangle has not been turned, and (B) leaves the pentagon pointing up.

Answer: C

The missing number is 120.

Each number is multiplied by one less than twice itself:

\[ \begin{aligned} 4 \times (2 \times 4 - 1) &= 4 \times 7 = 28 \\ 8 \times (2 \times 8 - 1) &= 8 \times 15 = 120 \end{aligned} \]

The same rule written another way is 2n² - n. A simple multiple does not work: multiplying by 7 as in the first pair would give 56, which is not offered. 80, 110 and 140 do not fit the rule, which gives 28 for 4 and 120 for 8.

Answer: C

The answer is Past.

A prediction is a statement about the future. Guilt is the feeling a person has about something already done, so it relates to the past. The analogy pairs each word with the time it concerns.

'Present' gives the wrong time. 'Misdeed' is the cause of guilt and 'Repent' is a response to it, but neither is a time, so they do not follow the pattern of Prediction : Future.

Answer: C

Jakarta is related to Indonesia.

Berlin is the capital of Germany, and in the same way Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia. The relationship is capital city : country.

The capital of the UK is London, of France Paris, and of Malaysia Kuala Lumpur, so none of them is related to Jakarta in this way.

Analogy questions of this kind test a fixed relationship, so the answer must be the country whose capital is Jakarta, not merely a country near it, which is why Malaysia, its neighbour, is a trap.

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.