SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 11 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 13 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

In a certain code language, A + B means ‘A is the wife of B’. A − B means ‘A is the son of B’. A × B means ‘A is the husband of B’. A ÷ B means ‘A is the father of B’. Based on the above, how is P related to T if ‘P − Q + R ÷ S × T’?

(a)Husband’s brother
(b)Son’s son
(c)Father
(d)Father-in-law

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Rule: read the expression left to right, one symbol at a time, and fix each relation before moving on.

P − Q: P is the son of Q.
Q + R: Q is the wife of R.
R ÷ S: R is the father of S.
S × T: S is the husband of T.

Q and R are a couple, so P is their son. R is also the father of S, which makes P and S brothers.

S is the husband of T. P is therefore T's husband's brother, option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Son’s son — Son's son would put P two generations below T — the son of T's son. P is the son of Q and R, the same generation as S, and T is S's wife, so P and T stand level.
(c)
Father — P is the son of R, not the father of anyone in the expression. The father here is R, who fathers both P and S.
(d)
Father-in-law — Father-in-law would make P the father of S. The expression assigns that role to R (R ÷ S), while P is only R's other son.

Concept

Coded blood relations are a notation problem. Copy the four definitions into the margin first, then substitute mechanically, one symbol at a time, without trying to hold the family in your head.

Order matters and is easy to invert. A − B means A is the son of B, so the left letter is the child. Reading it the other way flips every generation in the chain.

Then draw a tree: older generation on top, couples joined by a horizontal line, children hanging below. The answer is read off the tree rather than deduced.

The question asks how P is related to T, not how T is related to P. The two answers are different — P is T's husband's brother, while T is P's brother's wife.

Key facts

In this code A − B means A is the son of B, so the letter on the left is the younger one.
Q is the wife of R and P is the son of Q, so P is the son of R as well.
R is the father of S, which makes P and S brothers.

Study next

Coded relations running to five or six symbols in one chainFamily puzzles asking how many members are male or femaleRelations stated in sentence form, such as pointing at a photograph

Common traps

Reading A − B as B is the son of A, which inverts every generation
Answering how T is related to P when the question asks the reverse
Skipping the middle link Q + R and never connecting P to R at all

SSC defines four operators, gives a chain of four letters, and asks for one relation. The 11 Sep 2024, 09:00 paper uses the same four symbols with different meanings at Reasoning Q.6 — which is the point: the definitions must be reread every time.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.