SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 3 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 17 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 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.

A dishonest shopkeeper claims to sell salt at a rate of ₹25/kg. The cost price of the salt is ₹25/kg. Not satisfied with this, he tries to make profit by removing 200 gm from each kg. What is the shopkeeper’s gain percentage?

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The price is honest at ₹25 both ways, so the whole profit comes from the short weight.

The customer pays for 1000 g and receives 800 g.

Shopkeeper's cost = 800 × ₹25/1000 = ₹20
Money received = ₹25
Profit = 25 − 20 = ₹5
Gain % = (5/20) × 100 = 25% → option (b)

Same sum, shorter: gain % = shortfall ÷ weight actually given × 100 = (200/800) × 100 = 25%.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
20% measures the gain on the wrong base — ₹5 on the ₹25 received, or 200 g against the 1000 g charged for. Gain per cent runs on cost, which is ₹20, or 800 g.
(c)
30% matches nothing in the question. It would need 200 g removed from a base of about 667 g, whereas the shopkeeper's real cost base is the 800 g he hands over.
(d)
15% is lower even than the 200/1000 = 20% misreading, so it understates the fraud on either base. None of the ratios available — 200/800, 200/1000, 800/1000 — comes to 15%.

Concept

In a false-weight problem the shopkeeper's cost tracks the goods he actually parts with, not the weight he charges for. Charging for 1000 g and delivering 800 g means he buys 800 g and sells it at the price of a kilogram.

So gain % = (claimed weight − actual weight) ÷ actual weight × 100.

Because the selling rate and the cost rate are both ₹25/kg, the money cancels out entirely and the answer depends only on the two weights.

The four options are printed as images, reading 20%, 25%, 30% and 15%. The stem itself is text.

Key facts

With an honest price and a false weight, gain % = (claimed − actual) ÷ actual × 100.
Here that is (1000 − 800)/800 × 100 = 25%.
The base of any gain percentage is the cost price, never the selling price.
Removing 200 g per kg leaves 800 g sold at the price of 1000 g.

Study next

False weight combined with a mark-up or a discount on the stated priceSuccessive discounts and the single discount equivalent to themConverting a gain per cent measured on selling price into one measured on cost price

Common traps

Dividing the 200 g shortfall by 1000 g, which uses the claimed weight as the base.
Taking ₹5 as a profit on the ₹25 received, since ₹25 is the selling price and not the cost.
Inventing a mark-up: the stem fixes both the selling rate and the cost rate at ₹25/kg.

The dishonest-shopkeeper item turns entirely on which weight is the base, and SSC keeps the price honest so nothing distracts from that. This shift's Quant Q.20 asks the mirror question — a discount percentage measured on the marked price.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.