SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 15 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 22 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 boy, a woman says, 'He is the son of my only brother’s wife.' How is the boy related to the woman?

(a)Cousin
(b)Grandson
(c)Nephew
(d)Son

Answer

Why

Correct — C.
Rule: resolve the chain from the speaker outward.

The woman's only brother → his wife, her sister-in-law.
That wife's son → the brother's son.
A brother's son is the woman's nephew → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Cousin — Cousin is the child of a parent's sibling. The boy's father is the woman's brother, not her uncle, so the boy is one generation below her.
(b)
Grandson — Grandson sits two generations below. The boy is only one below the woman, since his father is her brother.
(d)
Son — Son would make the woman his mother. His mother is her brother's wife, a different woman.

Concept

"My only brother's wife's son" is read as my brother's son: the wife links the boy to the brother, one generation below the speaker.

The son of your brother or sister is your nephew, whether you are a man or a woman. "Only" just tells you which brother is meant.

Strictly, the brother's wife could have a son from an earlier marriage. The question gives no hint of that, so the boy is read as the brother's son.

Key facts

Brother's wife = sister-in-law.
A sibling's son is a nephew, a sibling's daughter a niece.
A cousin is the child of a parent's sibling, on your own generation.

Study next

Chains through a sister's husband, such as a sister's husband's sonThe same boy seen from the woman's husband, who is also his uncle by marriageCoded family trees that mark gender with symbols

Common traps

Confusing nephew (your sibling's child) with cousin (your parent's sibling's child)
Choosing Son because the sentence opens 'He is the son of'

14 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.20 builds the same chain from a husband's side: Rekha's brother Ramesh, his wife Rina and her son Raj, keyed as Ravi's nephew.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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