SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 23 September 2024, Shift 3 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 2 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.

Simplify the following expression. 0.07 × 0.28 ÷ 0.04 + 0.64 − 1.64 ÷ 0.04

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The expression printed with the question is 0.07 × 0.28 ÷ 0.04 + 0.64 − 1.64 ÷ 0.04, and BODMAS clears every × and ÷ before any + or −.

Multiplication and division first, left to right:
0.07 × 0.28 = 0.0196
0.0196 ÷ 0.04 = 0.49
1.64 ÷ 0.04 = 41

Only now the addition and subtraction:
0.49 + 0.64 − 41 = 1.13 − 41 = −39.87 → option (b), which shows −39.87.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Option (a) shows 36.78, a positive total. Once 1.64 ÷ 0.04 = 41 is subtracted from a running value of 1.13, the answer has to be negative — the sign alone rules this out.
(c)
Option (c) shows 38.56, positive again, and fails the same sign test. With 41 taken away, nothing in this expression can climb above 1.13.
(d)
Option (d) shows −46.48. The sign is right and the size is not: 0.49 and 0.64 are added to the running total before 41 comes off, which lifts the answer to −39.87 rather than pushing it past −46.

Concept

BODMAS is an order, not a left-to-right reading. Division and multiplication rank equally and are worked left to right; addition and subtraction rank equally and come after.

The whole item turns on one term: 1.64 ÷ 0.04. Dividing by 0.04 is multiplying by 25, because 1 ⁄ 0.04 = 25, so a term that looks small becomes 41 and swamps everything else.

The 0.07 × 0.28 ÷ 0.04 group is the same trick in miniature — 0.0196 becomes 0.49.

Both the sentence and the expression reach the candidate as images on the response sheet, so the operators have to be read off the picture before any arithmetic starts.

Key facts

BODMAS settles × and ÷ before + and −, and equal-rank operations run left to right.
Dividing by 0.04 multiplies by 25, since 1 ⁄ 0.04 = 25.
1.64 ÷ 0.04 = 41, and it is that single term that drives the answer negative.

Study next

BODMAS strings containing "of", which ranks with division rather than multiplicationDecimal multiplication and counting the decimal places of a productRewriting division by a decimal as multiplication by its reciprocal

Common traps

Working strictly left to right and adding 0.64 before the 1.64 ÷ 0.04 division is done.
Slipping a decimal place in 0.07 × 0.28 = 0.0196 and carrying 0.196 forward.

SSC prints a bare "Simplify the following" and hands over one expression, sometimes as text and sometimes as an image. Comparable strings are set at 13 Sep 2024, 16:00, Quant Q.22 and at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, Quant Q.24.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Basic algebraic identities of School Algebra & Elementary surds — all 130 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.