SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 19 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.

The number of applicants appeared and qualified in a 4-wheeler driving licence test during the last four months of 2022 from a city are listed in the following table. Study the table carefully and answer the question that follows. Month → Appeared applicants | Qualified applicants September — 2500 | 1200 October — 2000 | 1100 November — 2100 | 900 December — 3000 | 1500 What is the percentage of disqualified applicants for the driving licence test in September?

(a)48%
(b)50%
(c)52%
(d)54%

Answer

Why

Correct — C. The stem is a table of applicants for a 4-wheeler driving licence test; read the September row.

September: 2500 appeared, 1200 qualified

Disqualified = appeared − qualified
= 2500 − 1200 = 1300

Percentage = 1300 ⁄ 2500 × 100
= 13 ⁄ 25 × 100 = 52% → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
48% — 48% is the qualified share, 1200 of 2500. It is the complement of what was asked — the question wants the applicants who did not qualify, so 100 − 48.
(b)
50% — 50% is December's figure, not September's: 3000 appeared there and 1500 qualified, an exact half. September's shortfall is 1300 out of 2500.
(d)
54% — 54% of 2500 is 1350, fifty above the 1300 who actually failed. No pair of numbers in the table produces it.

Concept

A table item like this asks for one quantity the table does not print — here disqualified = appeared − qualified — and then that figure as a percentage.

The base decides the answer. Percentage of disqualified applicants takes the appeared column as 100%, because that is the group being screened.

After that it is one fraction: 1300 ⁄ 2500. Cancel 100 from each side to get 13 ⁄ 25, and multiplying numerator and denominator by 4 gives 52 ⁄ 100.

Four months are printed, but only the September row is needed. Reading the whole table before reading the question costs time you do not have in Tier-I.

Qualified percentage and disqualified percentage always add to 100, so either one answers the question. Both are on offer here — 48% and 52% — which is what the option list is testing.

Key facts

September of the table: 2500 appeared and 1200 qualified, so 1300 were disqualified.
For any single month, qualified percentage plus disqualified percentage equals 100.
13 ⁄ 25 = 52 ⁄ 100, so any 'so many out of 25' figure converts to a percentage by multiplying by 4.

Study next

Choosing the base in a percentage question — of appeared, of qualified, or of the four-month totalPercentage change between two rows of the same tableConverting a ratio to a percentage by scaling the denominator to 100

Common traps

Answering with the qualified percentage, because 1200 is the number actually printed.
Using the four-month total of appeared applicants as the base when the question names one month.
Subtracting in the wrong order and reporting a negative count.

SSC prints a small table as an image and asks for one derived percentage from a single row. A table-reading item of the same build sits at Quant Q.24 of this shift, where the derived column is unsold units rather than failed applicants.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.