SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 19 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 24 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 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.

In a certain code language, 'A ! B' means ‘A is the father of B’, 'A & B' means ‘A is the brother of B’, 'A * B' means ‘A is the wife of B’ and 'A # B' means ‘A is the daughter of B’. Which of the following means that S is the husband's brother's wife of M?

(a)S & F * J ! I # M
(b)S & F ! J * I # M
(c)S * F & J ! I # M
(d)S & F # J ! I * M

Answer

Why

Correct — C. What is wanted: S is the wife of the brother of M's husband.

Read the chain left to right. S * F makes S the wife of F, and that is the only opening that makes S a wife at all.

F & J makes F the brother of J, so S is married to J's brother.

J ! I makes J the father of I, and I # M makes I the daughter of M, so M is I's other parent — J's wife.

F is therefore the brother of M's husband, and S is F's wife, which is what option (c) says.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
S & F * J ! I # M — It opens S & F, making S the brother of F and therefore male. The relation asked for ends in 'wife', so the chain fails at its first symbol.
(b)
S & F ! J * I # M — It also opens S & F, so S is again a brother. Nothing later in the chain can turn a brother into a wife.
(d)
S & F # J ! I * M — Same opening, S & F, so S is male again. Its closing link, I * M, also makes I the wife of M rather than M's child.

Concept

Symbol-coded relation items are read strictly left to right, one symbol at a time, and each symbol carries a gender as well as a link.

Wife and daughter make the person on the left female; father and brother make the person on the left male. That gender check alone kills options before any diagram is drawn.

Here the question asks for S as somebody's wife, so every chain that opens by making S a brother is out at the first symbol — which is three of the four options.

The phrase 'husband's brother's wife' is read from M outwards: M's husband, then his brother, then that brother's wife.

Key facts

In this code A * B means A is the wife of B, so the symbol fixes the gender of the person on its left.
A ! B means A is the father of B, and A # B means A is the daughter of B.
A child with a stated father and a second stated parent gives you a married couple, which is how J and M are linked here.

Study next

Symbol-coded blood relations where the stem redefines the symbolsDrawing a family diagram with males and females marked before reading the optionsIn-law relations in English: sister-in-law reached through a husband versus through a sibling

Common traps

Reading the chain right to left, which reverses every relation in it.
Ignoring the gender each symbol forces on the person to its left.
Treating husband's brother's wife as a blood relation instead of two marriages either side of a sibling link.

The four symbols are defined inside this stem, so they must be read here rather than recalled, and the gender each one forces is the fastest filter on the options.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.