SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 21 September 2025, Shift 3 · Quantitative Aptitude · Question 20 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.

Find the x-intercept of 5x + 2y = 10

(a)2
(b)4
(c)5
(d)7

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The x-intercept is where the line crosses the x-axis, and every point there has y = 0.

Set y = 0: 5x + 2(0) = 10
Simplify: 5x = 10
Divide by 5: x = 2

The line crosses the x-axis at (2, 0), so the x-intercept is 2 → option (a)

Why the others are wrong

(b)
4 — 4 fails the substitution: at (4, 0), 5 × 4 + 2 × 0 = 20, double the required 10.
(c)
5 — 5 is the y-intercept: put x = 0 and 2y = 10 gives y = 5. The x-intercept needs y = 0 instead.
(d)
7 — 7 fails the substitution: at (7, 0), 5 × 7 + 2 × 0 = 35, not 10. The line meets the x-axis at (2, 0) and nowhere else.

Concept

Every point on the x-axis has y = 0, so the x-intercept of a line comes from putting y = 0 and solving for x.

The y-intercept is the mirror step: put x = 0. For 5x + 2y = 10 the two axis points are (2, 0) and (0, 5), and the line runs through both.

Intercept form reads both at once. Divide 5x + 2y = 10 by 10 to get x⁄2 + y⁄5 = 1: the number under x is the x-intercept, 2, and the number under y is the y-intercept, 5.

Key facts

x-intercept: put y = 0 and solve for x.
y-intercept: put x = 0 and solve for y.
The line x⁄a + y⁄b = 1 meets the axes at (a, 0) and (0, b).

Study next

Area of the triangle a line cuts off with the two axesSlope of ax + by = c, which is −a⁄bRewriting ax + by = c in intercept form

Common traps

Putting x = 0 instead of y = 0 and answering the y-intercept, 5.
Reading a coefficient as the intercept: the x-intercept is 10 ÷ 5 = 2, not the 5 printed beside x.

14 Sep 2025, 09:00, Quant Q.23 asks the mirror question, the y-intercept of 4x + 5y = 20. Put x = 0: 5y = 20, keyed 4.

19 Sep 2025, 09:00, Quant Q.16 asks which points lie on y = 4x − 5, keyed 'All the above'. One of them, (0, −5), is that line's y-intercept.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Basic algebraic identities of School Algebra & Elementary surds — all 147 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.