SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 23 of 98

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.

How many people play either only volleyball or only chess as per the given Venn diagram? Volleyball only 23 | Volleyball and Chess 15 | Chess only 43 | Volleyball, Chess and Tennis 7 | Volleyball and Tennis 12 | Chess and Tennis 16 | Tennis only 34

(a)66
(b)15
(c)88
(d)81

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Read only the two regions that lie inside one circle and outside both of the others.

Rule: only X means the part of circle X that no other circle overlaps.

Volleyball only = 23
Chess only = 43

23 + 43 = 66 → option (a)

Why the others are wrong

(b)
15 — 15 is the volleyball-and-chess overlap outside tennis. Everyone counted there plays two sports, so it belongs to neither only-region.
(c)
88 — 88 puts overlaps back in that only excludes. One route to it is 23 + 43 + 15 + 7, which restores both of the volleyball-and-chess regions.
(d)
81 — 81 is the whole chess circle, 43 + 15 + 16 + 7. That counts everyone who plays chess, including those who also play volleyball or tennis.

Concept

The stem for this item is printed inside the figure: how many people play either only volleyball or only chess, as per the given Venn diagram.

The diagram shows three overlapping circles labelled Volleyball, Chess and Tennis. The regions carry 23 (volleyball only), 43 (chess only), 34 (tennis only), 15 (volleyball and chess), 12 (volleyball and tennis), 16 (chess and tennis) and 7 (all three).

Only is the operative word. It confines you to the part of a circle that no other circle touches, so every overlap figure is excluded — the 7 at the centre included.

Nothing here asks for a total, a union or an intersection. The word only does all the work, and reading past it is what turns a five-second question into a wrong answer.

Key facts

Volleyball only is 23 and chess only is 43, so the answer is 66.
The whole chess circle is 81, made of 43 + 15 + 16 + 7.
The centre region, 7, belongs to all three circles and the word only excludes it.

Study next

Venn questions asking for exactly two of three categoriesVenn questions asking for the union of two circles, where the overlap counts onceBuilding a three-circle Venn from statements about totals

Common traps

Reading only volleyball as the whole volleyball circle, which is 57.
Including the centre value 7 because it does lie inside both named circles.
Adding the volleyball-and-chess overlap 15 because both named sports appear in it.

The stem is set inside the image rather than above it, so the wording has to be read off the figure. Reasoning Q.25 of 13 Sep 2024, 16:00 uses the same three-circle layout but asks for a union instead of an only-region.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.