Letter & Symbol Series: Alphabet and EJOTY Concept

In almost all the competitive exams, alphabet reasoning questions are always there. In this topic, the majority of questions are asked regarding the position of English alphabets. The letter & symbol series thus is a very important topic for any competitive exam.

Letter & Symbol Series

Letter & symbol series

There are different types of questions that can be asked from the letter & symbol series. Below are a few of the types along with the questions.

The Alphabet

There are 26 letters in the English language and in that, the letters from A to M, that is 13 letters are considered as the 1st half. While the letters from n to Z forms the second half of the alphabets. Thus, you have to remember this concept of first half and second half in the alphabets.

A to M (First half) = 1 to 13

N to Z (Second half) = 14 to 26

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EJOTY Concept

While solving the questions in letters & symbol it is important to remember the position of the alphabets. And it is not easy to remember the positions of every alphabet precisely. But using this EJOTY concept, one can remember the positions of the alphabet. Also, you can easily find out the position of the alphabet without much effort. The concept is:

For example, we are asked to find the 23rd letter from the left-hand side of the alphabet. As per the table has given above, we already know that 25th letter from left-hand side is Y. So, now we need to find the second letter from Y which is W. Thus, memorizing the sequences and positions of letters is a basic way to solve any problem.

Breaking the complex series and letters into simpler ones to solve them individually

Q. Look at the given series and fill the blank given.

SBC, TCD, UFG, _____, WPQ

Here, in the given question, there are two alphabet series gives. Also, the first series given here is formed using the first letters only. Also, it consists of consecutive letters of the alphabet starting from S which is S, T, U, V, and W. So, the first letter in the blank will be V.

Also, there is a second series which involves the remaining two letters. These letters are supposed to be 2 consecutive letters. Also, it should start from the letter C which is CD, EF, GH, IJ, AND KL. So, the missing term here in the blank will be VIJ.

Q. Look at the below-given series and fill in the required blank.

KAL, LBM, MCN, NDO, _____

The above series given is divided into three different sequences. All the letters in the series are the sequence. The 1st letter in all the series is K, L, M, N, so the next letter will be O. So, the second and third letter will be followed by an E and P. So, the final answer here will OEP.

Practice Questions on Letter & Symbol Series

Q. Complete the given blank in the series below.

SCD, TEF, UGH, ______ , WKL

A. UJI

B. IJT

C. VIJ

D. CMN

Answer: C. VIJ

Q. FAG, GAF, HAI, IAH, _____.

A. HAL

B. JAK

C. JAI

D. HAK

Answer: B. JAK

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Alan Livesey says:

July 14, 2019 at 12:43 am

There are a number of errors on this page:

In example 2:
“You can see that each of the numbers is a square and that the sequence is a perfect square series. 1, 22, 32, 42 (=16). The alphabet that corresponds to 16 is P. ”
should read
“You can see that each of the numbers is a square and that the sequence is a perfect square series. 1, 2×2, 3×3, 4×4 (=16). The alphabet that corresponds to 16 is P. ”
(I suspect that the original text from which this was prepared used superscript but this has not been reflected in the online version, so use “2×2” or “2^2” which most people are familiar with from Excel)

In Circular Arrangement Series:
“These type of questions are similar to the ones we saw earlier. But there our numbering scheme would stop at 26 with X.”
should read
“These type of questions are similar to the ones we saw earlier. But there our numbering scheme would stop at 26 with Z.”

In example 3:
“Answer: The lesser the number of alphabets present, the greater the difficulty of the question. Here you see that V and A have a difference of 4 alphabets between them. Similarly, A and H have a difference of 6 alphabets between them if we follow the circular order of the alphabets. Thus the next alphabet will have to have a difference of 8 alphabets with H. This alphabet is Q. Thus the series is V, A, H, Q. Therefore the correct option is s) P.”
should read
“Answer: The lesser the number of alphabets present, the greater the difficulty of the question. Here you see that V and A have a difference of 4 letters between them. Similarly, A and H have a difference of 6 letters between them if we follow the circular order of the alphabets. Thus the next alphabet will have to have a difference of 8 letters with H. This letter is Q. Thus the series is V, A, H, Q. Therefore the correct option is d) P.”

In example 4:
“Answer: We will have to figure out the rule to every sequence. If you use the table, you will see that it becomes much more convenient to guess the rule. For example, in the first series, Q = 17; T = 20, X = 24; C = 29 [circular alphabet order]. Thus it forms a series under the rule. Similarly for the second option, F 6, P = 16, Z = 26 and J = 36. It also forms a correct sequence. Let us see the third one i.e. W = 23; U = 21; R = 18; and N = 14. So it is a wrong sequence. In place of N = 14, we should have had O.

That means the only series here that has a wrong term should be d). Let us check it. We have A = 1, L = 12, W = 23, H = 34.
should read
Answer: We will have to figure out the rule to every sequence. If you use the table, you will see that it becomes much more convenient to guess the rule. For example, in the first series, Q = 17; T = 20, X = 24; C = 29 [circular alphabet order]. Thus it forms a series under the rule. Similarly for the second option, F 6, P = 16, Z = 26 and J = 36. It also forms a correct sequence. Let us see the fourth one i.e. A = 1, L = 12, W = 23, H = 34 which is a correct sequence.

Let us see the third one i.e. W = 23; U = 21; R = 18; and N = 14. So it is a wrong sequence. In place of N = 14, we should have had O.

Kind regards,
Alan

PS If you have other material that needs proof-reading I am frequently called upon to spot typos and grammatical errors in texts of all types including dense technical ones.

Letter & Symbol Series