SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 1 of 99

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 10 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.

From the given data, find the ratio of the cost prices of a shirt and a trouser. Item → Selling Price | Profit Shirt — ₹1,200 | 20% Trouser — ₹660 | 10%

(a)2 : 1
(b)3 : 4
(c)1 : 3
(d)5 : 3

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Profit is always reckoned on the cost price, so SP = CP × (1 + profit⁄100).

Shirt: 1200 = CP × 1.20
CP = 1200 ÷ 1.20 = ₹1,000

Trouser: 660 = CP × 1.10
CP = 660 ÷ 1.10 = ₹600

Ratio of cost prices = 1000 : 600 = 5 : 3 → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
2 : 1 — 2 : 1 is 1200 : 600 — the shirt's selling price set beside the trouser's cost price. Convert both figures or neither.
(b)
3 : 4 — 3 : 4 puts the trouser above the shirt. The two cost prices are 1,000 and 600, so the shirt's term has to be the larger one.
(c)
1 : 3 — 1 : 3 needs the shirt to cost a third of the trouser. Even reversed, 600 : 1,000 is 3 : 5 — no arrangement of these two cost prices gives 1 : 3.

Concept

Profit percentage is measured on the cost price, never on the selling price. A 20% profit therefore means SP = 1.2 × CP, and recovering CP is a division, not a subtraction.

Taking 20% off ₹1,200 gives ₹960, which is wrong by ₹40 — the 20% belongs to the smaller number.

The fraction form is faster: 20% profit fixes CP : SP = 5 : 6 and 10% profit fixes CP : SP = 10 : 11, which reads ₹1,000 and ₹600 straight off the table.

The table supplies selling price and profit percentage, not cost price, so the ratio asked for is not sitting in any column — both entries have to be converted first.

Key facts

Profit percentage is taken on cost price: SP = CP × (1 + profit⁄100).
A 20% profit fixes CP : SP = 5 : 6, so a selling price of ₹1,200 means a cost price of ₹1,000.
A 10% profit fixes CP : SP = 10 : 11, so a selling price of ₹660 means a cost price of ₹600.

Study next

Recovering cost price from selling price and a profit or loss percentageProfit stated as a fraction of the selling price instead of the cost priceComparing two items whose profit percentages differ

Common traps

Subtracting 20% of ₹1,200 instead of dividing by 1.20
Answering with the ratio of selling prices, 1200 : 660, which is 20 : 11
Writing the ratio trouser-first when the stem asks shirt to trouser

SSC prints the data as a small image table and leaves the stem text empty, so the four numbers arrive only in the picture.

The same cost-price recovery is asked in words at Quant Q.24 of this shift, where the gain is a fraction of the selling price, and at 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, Quant Q.23, which wants the ratio of cost price to marked price.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.