SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 13 September 2024, Shift 3 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 25 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.

The table shows the percentage distribution of the population (only male and female) according to Gender and Literacy. State → Percentage literate | Gender, Literate (M : F) | Gender, Illiterate (M : F) A — 55 | 5 : 6 | 4 : 5 B — 72 | 1 : 1 | 3 : 2 C — 78 | 4 : 3 | 3 : 2 If the literate male population of state A is 5,00,000, then the total population of the state is:

(a)20,00,000
(b)16,00,000
(c)30,00,000
(d)40,00,000

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Call the state's total population T and read only the row for state A.

Literates = 55% of T = 0.55T
Literate M : F = 5 : 6, so literate males are 5⁄11 of the literates
Literate males = (5⁄11) × 0.55T = 0.25T

0.25T = 5,00,000
T = 5,00,000 × 4 = 20,00,000 → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
16,00,000 — 16,00,000 would make the literates 8,80,000 and the literate males 5⁄11 of that, which is 4,00,000 — not the 5,00,000 the stem fixes.
(c)
30,00,000 — 30,00,000 would make the literates 16,50,000 and the literate males 7,50,000, half as many again as the figure given.
(d)
40,00,000 — 40,00,000 doubles the answer and doubles the literate males with it, to 10,00,000. It treats 5,00,000 as an eighth of the population rather than a quarter.

Concept

The table gives a percentage and a ratio, and the two multiply.

The 55% column fixes how much of state A is literate. The 5 : 6 ratio then splits that literate block by gender, so literate males are 5⁄11 of 55% of the total.

(5⁄11) × 55% = 25%, so in state A a literate male is exactly a quarter of the population. That is why 5,00,000 literate males force a total of 20,00,000.

The illiterate ratio 4 : 5 belongs to the remaining 45% and plays no part in this question.

The table is an image. Its row for state A prints 55 under Percentage literate, 5 : 6 for literate M : F and 4 : 5 for illiterate M : F, and rows B and C carry their own figures that this question does not use.

Key facts

Literate males in state A are (5⁄11) × 55% = 25% of the state's population.
State A's illiterates are the remaining 45%, split 4 : 5 between males and females.
A ratio of 5 : 6 makes the first part 5⁄11 of the whole, not 5⁄6 of it.
With a total of 20,00,000 the literate population of state A is 11,00,000.

Study next

Two-level tables where a percentage row and a ratio row have to be combined before anything can be countedFinding literate females or illiterate males from the same table by changing only the fractionComparing two states in one table, where the totals differ and only shares are given

Common traps

Taking literate males as 5⁄6 of the literates instead of 5⁄11
Applying the illiterate ratio 4 : 5 to the literate block
Answering the literate population, 11,00,000, when the total was asked for

SSC plants one absolute number inside a table of percentages and ratios and asks you to scale everything else from it.

Also asked 18 Sep 2024, 09:00, Quant Q.18 (45% of voters male, 60% of the males illiterate, 60% of the females literate).

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