Rajesh, in his printing press, got an order to print some books, out of which he completed 17⁄27 of the order in 34 days. In how many days did he complete the entire order of printing?

Correct — A. The stem is an image: Rajesh completed 17/27 of a printing order in 34 days, and the question asks how many days the entire order takes.

Work is proportional to time at a steady rate, so scale the fraction up to 1.

17/27 of the order → 34 days
1/27 of the order → 34 ÷ 17 = 2 days
27/27 of the order → 27 × 2 = 54 days

In one line: 34 × 27/17 = 2 × 27 = 54 → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  60 — 60 days for the whole order would put 17/27 of it at 60 × 17/27 ≈ 37.8 days. The question fixes that stretch at 34 days.
• (c)
  56 — 56 days gives 56 × 17/27 ≈ 35.3 days for the first 17/27. Close, but the figure has to come out at exactly 34.
• (d)
  20 — 20 is the days still to go, not the total. The remaining 10/27 needs 10 × 2 = 20 days, and the full order is 34 + 20 = 54.

At a constant rate, days and work done move together, so a fraction of the job and its time are in the same proportion as the whole job and its time.

The clean method is to price one unit fraction. Here 17 twenty-sevenths cost 34 days, so one twenty-seventh costs 2 days, and 27 of them cost 54.

SSC chooses the numbers so this division is exact — 34 ÷ 17 = 2 — which is a signal that unitary method is the intended route.

Key facts

• Unitary method: if a fraction f of a job takes t days, the whole job takes t ÷ f days
• 34 ÷ (17/27) = 34 × 27/17 = 54
• One twenty-seventh of this order takes 2 days
• The work left after 34 days is 10/27, which needs a further 20 days

Common traps

• Answering with the days still remaining (20) instead of the total (54)
• Multiplying by 17/27 instead of dividing by it
• Adding 34 and 27 or similar, when the fraction has to be scaled rather than shifted

No directly related past PYQ was found.