SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 16 September 2025, Shift 1 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 3 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 13 September 2026.

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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.

A tank holds 5 3⁄4 liters of water. If 2.375 liters are drained twice, how much water remains?

(a)1
(b)1 1⁄4
(c)1 3⁄8
(d)1 1⁄2

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Put the mixed number and the decimal in the same form first.

Convert: 5 3⁄4 = 5 + 0.75 = 5.75 litres
Water drained = 2 × 2.375 = 4.75 litres
Water left = 5.75 − 4.75 = 1 litre → option (a)

Same in fractions:
2.375 = 2 3⁄8 = 19⁄8
2 × 19⁄8 = 19⁄4 = 4 3⁄4
5 3⁄4 − 4 3⁄4 = 1

Why the others are wrong

(b)
1 1⁄4 — Leaving 1 1⁄4 litres means 4.5 litres went out, 2.25 per draining. Each draining is 2.375 litres, so 4.75 litres go out in all.
(c)
1 3⁄8 — Leaving 1 3⁄8 litres means 4.375 litres went out, 0.375 short of the 4.75 litres that two drainings of 2.375 remove.
(d)
1 1⁄2 — Leaving 1 1⁄2 litres means 4.25 litres went out, 0.5 litre short of the 4.75 litres that two drainings of 2.375 remove.

Concept

Mixed numbers and decimals in one problem: convert everything to one form before you subtract. Decimals are quicker here, since 3⁄4 = 0.75 and 2.375 is already a decimal.

Know the eighths as decimals: 1⁄8 = 0.125, 3⁄8 = 0.375, 5⁄8 = 0.625, 7⁄8 = 0.875. Then 2.375 reads at once as 2 3⁄8, and options written in eighths or quarters can be matched without long division.

Key facts

1⁄8 = 0.125, so 3⁄8 = 0.375, 5⁄8 = 0.625 and 7⁄8 = 0.875.
5 3⁄4 = 5.75 and 2.375 = 2 3⁄8 = 19⁄8.
Draining 2.375 litres on two occasions removes 2 × 2.375 = 4.75 litres.

Study next

Converting between eighths, sixteenths and decimalsSimplification with mixed numbers and decimals in one expressionLitre and millilitre conversions in capacity problems

Common traps

Subtracting 2.375 only once: that leaves 3.375 litres, which is not an option and is a signal to re-read the stem.
Reading 0.375 as 3⁄4 instead of 3⁄8, a slip made easier by the quarters in 5 3⁄4.

A short word problem that is really a decimal–fraction conversion. The decimal 0.375 also drives the arithmetic at 13 Sep 2025, 16:00, Quant Q.2, where 0.375 litres a second for 8 seconds gives 3 litres.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Computation of whole numbers, decimals, fractions and relationships between numbers — all 62 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.