SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 1 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 7 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 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.

Each of Ravi and Kavita had some marbles. Kavita had 12 more marbles than Ravi had. If each of them had one more marble, then three times the number of marbles Kavita would then have had would have been equal to four times the number of marbles Ravi would then have had. How many marbles did Kavita actually have?

(a)51
(b)48
(c)43
(d)47

Answer

Why

Correct — D. One unknown is enough: let Ravi have R marbles, so Kavita has R + 12.

Give each one more: Ravi R + 1, Kavita R + 13
Three times Kavita's new count equals four times Ravi's new count:
3(R + 13) = 4(R + 1)

3R + 39 = 4R + 4 → R = 35

Kavita = 35 + 12 = 47 marbles → option (d)
Check: 3 × 48 = 144 and 4 × 36 = 144 ✔

Why the others are wrong

(a)
51 — 51 would make Ravi 39. After the extra marble each, 3 × 52 = 156 against 4 × 40 = 160, so the two sides never balance.
(b)
48 — 48 is Kavita's count after the extra marble is added, not what she actually had. The question asks for her real total, which is one less.
(c)
43 — 43 puts Ravi at 31. The test then reads 3 × 44 = 132 against 4 × 32 = 128, off by four in the other direction.

Concept

Every sentence of the stem is an equation, and the fixed gap of 12 lets you carry a single variable through all of them.

The hard clause is the conditional one. 'If each of them had one more' changes both counts before the comparison, so the equation is 3(K + 1) = 4(R + 1), never 3K = 4R.

Notice the direction of the multipliers: Kavita has more marbles, so her count carries the smaller multiplier, 3. Reading that backwards produces a negative number of marbles and should stop you at once.

Key facts

Kavita's count exceeds Ravi's by 12 both before and after each gains one marble.
The balancing condition is 3(R + 13) = 4(R + 1), giving R = 35.
Ravi actually had 35 marbles and Kavita 47.

Study next

Word problems where a condition applies to a changed quantity rather than the originalTwo-person difference problems that also fix a ratio after the changeChecking a linear answer by substitution instead of re-solving

Common traps

Applying the multipliers to the original counts and dropping the extra marble.
Answering with 48, the count after the increase.
Attaching the multiplier 4 to Kavita because her name comes first in the sentence.

SSC buries a conditional clause in the middle of a long sentence so that candidates set up the equation on the wrong quantities. The same one-variable substitution solves the family-age item at Quant Q.3 in this shift.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.