SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 21 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 11 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.

A is the son of B. C is the wife of B. D is the son of C. How is A related to D?

(a)Uncle
(b)Brother
(c)Cousin
(d)Son

Answer

Why

Correct — B.
Rule: draw one family tree; a married couple is read as the parents of the children named for either.

A is the son of B.
C is B's wife, so C is A's mother.
D is the son of C, so D is a son of the same couple.

A and D are both sons of B and C, so A is D's brother → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Uncle — Uncle would make A the brother of D's parent, one generation up. A is a son of the B–C couple, so he is in D's own generation.
(c)
Cousin — Cousin needs A and D to have different parents who are siblings. Here both are sons of the same couple, B and C, so they are brothers.
(d)
Son — Son would make D a parent of A. Both A and D are sons of B and C, so neither is the other's son.

Concept

Blood-relation items are solved by drawing the family one statement at a time: a vertical line from parent to child, a horizontal link for a married couple.

Here B and C form a couple. A hangs below B as a son, and D hangs below C as a son. Two sons below one couple are brothers, so A is D's brother.

Strictly, the statements never say C is A's mother or that B is D's father; either son could be from an earlier marriage. The key takes the plain reading, one couple with two sons. On any reading A is male and in D's generation, so brother is the relation that fits.

Key facts

Sons of the same married couple are brothers to each other.
A is male because the statement calls him a son, so the relation is brother, not sister.
A cousin is the child of a parent's brother or sister.

Study next

Blood relations where one parent is named only as someone's husband or wifePointing-to-a-person relation itemsCoded blood relations using symbols for mother, son and husband

Common traps

Choosing cousin because A and D are introduced through different parents
Answering son by reading D as a child of A instead of a child of C

18 Sep 2025, 12:30, Reasoning Q.10 relies on the same reading of a couple: Q is the mother of S and P is Q's husband, so P is keyed as S's father (option a).

21 Sep 2025, 16:00, Reasoning Q.12 is the sibling version: A is the father of B, B is C's brother, so A is C's father (option b).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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