SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 3 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 9 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 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.

The following table gives the total number of employees in 5 different companies A, B, C, D and E and the percentage of males and females. Study the table carefully and answer the question. Find the number of females in companies A, C and E put together.

(a)650
(b)675
(c)725
(d)700

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Take the female percentage against that company's own total, one row at a time.

A: 25% of 600 = 150
C: 30% of 700 = 210
E: 40% of 850 = 340

150 + 210 + 340 = 700 → option (d)

Why the others are wrong

(a)
650 — 650 is fifty short. The rows the question names give 150, 210 and 340, and no three companies in the table hold 650 women between them.
(b)
675 — 675 cannot be built from the table at all. The five female counts are 150, 199.5, 210, 360 and 340, and no three of those add to 675.
(c)
725 — 725 is twenty-five over. Each of the three rows divides cleanly — 25% of 600 is 150, 30% of 700 is 210, 40% of 850 is 340 — so the total is exactly 700.

Concept

The table pairs a count column with two percentage columns, and the only operation needed is total × percentage ⁄ 100, applied row by row.

The male and female percentages add to 100 in every row, so the female count can also be reached as total minus males. For company A that is 600 − 450 = 150, the same answer by a longer route.

The difficulty SSC builds in is not arithmetic but selection: three named companies out of five, scattered rather than adjacent, read under time pressure.

Company B's 35% of 570 works out to 199.5, so the table's percentages are rounded figures rather than exact head counts. The three companies this question asks about all give whole numbers, so the rounding never surfaces in the answer.

Key facts

Females in a company = total employees × female percentage ⁄ 100.
Every row's male and female percentages sum to 100, so A's 25% female matches its 75% male.
A contributes 150 women, C contributes 210 and E contributes 340, for 700 in all.
Company B's 35% of 570 is 199.5, which shows the percentages are rounded.

Study next

Percentage of a total taken from a table rowTable DI mixing an absolute count column with percentage columnsUsing the complementary percentage, 100 minus male%, as a cross-check

Common traps

Averaging the three percentages to 31.67% and applying it to the combined 2,150, which gives about 681.
Reading the male column instead, which totals 450 + 490 + 510 = 1,450.
Taking B's 570 in place of C's 700, which lands on the non-integer 689.5 and signals the wrong row.

SSC pairs a total column with a percentage column so the arithmetic stays trivial and the risk moves to picking the right rows. Table items asking for an average comparison and for one total as a percentage of another sit at Quant Q.1 and Q.15 of this paper.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.