SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 14 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 24 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Introducing a man, Shruti said, “He is the husband of the granddaughter of the only son of my grandfather.” How is the man related to Shruti?

(a)Son-in-law
(b)Husband
(c)Son
(d)Cousin

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Collapse the chain from the top.

Rule: "the only son of my grandfather" is Shruti's father, reading the grandfather as paternal.

The granddaughter of Shruti's father is a daughter of one of his children. Taken as Shruti's own daughter, she is the woman the man married.

A daughter's husband is a son-in-law, option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Husband — Husband would need Shruti herself to be the granddaughter. Shruti is her father's daughter, one generation above his granddaughter.
(c)
Son — A son is Shruti's child by birth. The man is linked to her through marrying her daughter, which makes him an in-law.
(d)
Cousin — A cousin is the child of Shruti's uncle or aunt, in her own generation. The man married a woman one generation below Shruti.

Concept

Long chains shrink from the top. "The only son of my grandfather" is Shruti's father: her father is a son of his own father, and there is just one son.

His granddaughter sits two generations below him and one below Shruti, as her daughter or her niece. The options make her Shruti's daughter.

The man is that granddaughter's husband, so he joins the family by marriage.

Two other readings are set aside by the options. If the granddaughter were a daughter of Shruti's brother or sister, the man would be married to Shruti's niece.

If the grandfather were maternal, his only son would be Shruti's maternal uncle. Neither relation is offered, and son-in-law fits the reading where the granddaughter is Shruti's own daughter.

Key facts

A paternal grandfather's only son is your father.
Your father's granddaughter is your daughter or your niece.
Your daughter's husband is your son-in-law.

Study next

Chains through a grandfather's only child or only sonIn-law relations across two generationsDrawing a family tree for three-generation statements

Common traps

Stopping a step short and treating the granddaughter as Shruti herself, which suggests Husband.
Treating the man as a blood relative, Son or Cousin, though he is related through marriage.

A grandfather's only child collapses to a parent in 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, Reasoning Q.22, where the daughter of Jay's grandfather's only child is his sister.

19 Sep 2025, 09:00, Reasoning Q.10 runs the chain downward: the only daughter of C's only son is C's granddaughter.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Problem Solving — all 74 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.