Cryptarithmetic is the most feared — and most Infosys-specific — part of the Logical Reasoning section. Each puzzle is an arithmetic sum written in letters (like SEND + MORE = MONEY), where every letter stands for a unique digit. Your job: crack the mapping and answer a question about the letter values. Almost every recent Infosys paper contains 2–4 of these.
How to solve cryptarithmetic fast
- Count the columns. If the result has more digits than the operands, the leading letter of the result is 1 (a carry) — e.g. M = 1 in SEND + MORE = MONEY.
- Work the extreme columns first. The leftmost column gives leading-digit constraints; the units column gives parity clues (e.g. X + X ending in X forces X = 0).
- Track carries explicitly. Write c₁, c₂... over each column; each carry is 0 or 1. Most eliminations come from carry contradictions.
- Use doubling shortcuts. Puzzles like XYZ + XYZ = 484 are just 2 × XYZ — divide and read off the digits.
- Verify before answering. Substitute your full mapping back into the sum — one wrong digit flips the asked value.
Practice Infosys cryptarithmetic questions
All puzzles below appeared in memory-based Infosys papers, and every answer has been verified by full enumeration — click to check yours.
Solve for X, Y, Z in the puzzle: XYZ + XYZ = 484
If ABC + CBA = 443, what is the value of B?
If AA + BB + CC = ABC, what is the value of A + B + C?
Budget alert: a cryptarithmetic puzzle can absorb 5+ minutes. Attempt them only after banking the quick reasoning questions — see the Logical Reasoning strategy.