Solve the puzzle, test what is known
The person hiding inside a description
Mina is a woman. Pointing to a girl, Mina says: “Her mother is my mother’s only daughter.”
Who is that girl to Mina? Try before expanding the phrase. This final lesson combines identity, codes and incomplete information. Accuracy comes before speed.
What is the girl to Mina?
Show answer
Correct answer: B
Mina is female and is a daughter of her own mother. Because that mother has only one daughter, the description identifies Mina. The girl’s mother is Mina, so the girl is Mina’s daughter.
Option A: This identifies the girl with the only daughter, but the clue identifies the girl’s mother.
Option C: The clue identifies Mina herself as the girl’s mother, not Mina’s sibling as a parent of the girl.
Option D: The girl is one generation below Mina, not above her.
Hint: Can “my mother’s only daughter” be the speaker herself?
What you will be able to do
About 28 minutes, including practice.
- Resolve unique descriptions and coded relation statements.
- Combine clues without inventing shared parents or marriage implications.
- Distinguish a known general relation from an undetermined gender-specific label.
- Separate roles: the speaker Mina, the girl, and the girl’s mother. Do not merge people just because a phrase feels familiar.
- Resolve the unique description: Mina is a woman, so she is her mother’s daughter. “Only daughter” must therefore identify Mina, not a newly invented sister.
- Substitute the identity into the clue: “The girl’s mother is Mina.” Now the ordinary parent-child link is clear.
- Check the wording: only daughter does not mean only child. Mina could have brothers; they do not change this answer.
Codes are labels, not arithmetic
For the next check only:
- X @ Y means X is Y’s mother.
- X # Y means X is Y’s brother.
- X + Y means X is Y’s father.
Read each adjacent pair separately. For P # Q @ R, write two statements: “P is Q’s brother” and “Q is R’s mother”. There is no arithmetic precedence and no universal meaning for a symbol.
Under this code, P # Q @ R. What is P to R?
Show answer
Correct answer: C
Decode P # Q as P being Q’s brother, and Q @ R as Q being R’s mother. A mother’s brother is a maternal uncle.
Option A: No parent link connects P directly to R.
Option B: Q is the mother, so this is the maternal side.
Option D: P is Q’s brother, not R’s stated brother.
Hint: Replace each symbol with its full sentence before solving.
Combine clues, but keep the empty spaces
Nora is the mother of Ishan and Kavya. Ishan is the father of his daughter Mira. Kavya is Om’s mother. Arun is Kavya’s husband.
Make the map yourself before revealing the steps. There is deliberately no statement connecting Arun as Om’s parent.
- Place Nora above Ishan and Kavya. They share a mother. Ishan is male because he is a father; Kavya is female because she is a mother.
- Add Ishan → Mira and Kavya → Om. Mira is explicitly a daughter; Om’s gender is unspecified. Mira and Om are children of siblings, so they are cousins.
- Add a separate spouse link between Kavya and Arun. “Husband” makes Arun male. It does not add Arun → Om.
- Read each question at its requested precision. “Cousin” can be known even when one cousin’s gender is unknown. “Father” cannot be concluded from a spouse link alone.
Text version: parent paths are Nora → Ishan → Mira and Nora → Kavya → Om. Kavya and Arun have a separately labelled spouse link. There is no asserted parent link between Arun and Om.
Which statement must follow from these clues?
Show answer
Correct answer: D
Om’s mother is Kavya. Her brother is Ishan, whose daughter is Mira. Thus Mira is Om’s maternal uncle’s daughter (ममेरी बहन). The clues do not establish Arun’s parenthood or Om’s gender.
Option A: The husband of a mother is not automatically established as this child’s father.
Option B: Om’s name supplies no gender evidence.
Option C: Their parents are siblings; the children are cousins.
Hint: Stand at Om and follow the mother’s sibling branch.
“Unknown” is not the same as “nothing is known”
To test an uncertain claim, try two possible families that both satisfy the clues. Arun could be Om’s father, or he could be Kavya’s husband without being Om’s father. Both preserve every stated fact. Therefore “Arun is Om’s father” is not forced. This does not prove he is not the father.
Also, a sibling link alone need not supply both shared parents. If P is Q’s father and Q is R’s brother, the clues do not identify which parent Q and R share. A question may explicitly say “full siblings” or name the shared parents; then use that extra information. Do not silently add it.
If the broad relation is known, prefer that accurate answer over a blanket “cannot be determined”.
A is B’s son. C is A’s daughter. What is B to C?
Show answer
Correct answer: A
B → son A → daughter C is fixed. B is a parent of C’s father: a paternal grandparent. B could be male or female, so दादा versus दादी is not determined, but the grandparent relation is.
Option B: B is two generations above C, not one.
Option C: Neither the generation nor B’s gender supports this answer.
Option D: Both parent links are known; only the gender-specific label is missing.
Hint: Separate the established two-generation relation from B’s unstated gender.
Final practice: 10 new problems
Use a fresh map for each. Code definitions apply only where stated. The questions ask what the supplied clues establish, without assuming names reveal gender or siblings share both parents.
A longer chain need not require a rare kinship word. Three consecutive parent links give a great-grandparent relation; for a sideways branch, a precise phrase such as “sister’s daughter’s son” can be clearer than a special label. First solve without hints; review mistakes by cause, not by score.
- Here X @ Y means X is Y’s mother; X + Y means X is Y’s father. For P @ Q + R, what is P to R?
Show answer
Correct answer: C
P is Q’s mother; Q is R’s father. P is R’s father’s mother: paternal grandmother.
Option A: This drops Q and one generation.
Option B: The route to P goes through R’s father.
Option D: No sibling branch is present.
Hint: Decode the two adjacent symbol pairs, not a mathematical expression.
- Here X # Y means X is Y’s brother; X @ Y means X is Y’s mother; X + Y means X is Y’s father. Which expression shows that A is B’s maternal uncle?
Show answer
Correct answer: B
A # C gives A as C’s brother. C @ B gives C as B’s mother. Together they make A the brother of B’s mother.
Option A: This makes A a mother, not a male sibling of B’s mother.
Option C: This makes A the father of B’s mother: maternal grandfather.
Option D: This makes B the brother of A’s mother, reversing A and B.
Hint: You need “A is the brother of someone who is B’s mother”.
- S is a woman. S says: “That boy is the son of my father’s only daughter.” What is the boy to S?
Show answer
Correct answer: A
S is already her father’s daughter. Since he has only one daughter, that daughter is S. The boy is S’s son. “Only daughter” does not exclude sons of S’s father.
Option B: That would make the boy a child of S’s parent rather than a child of S.
Option C: The only daughter is S, so the boy’s mother is S, not a sibling of S.
Option D: The boy is below S in the family path, not above her.
Hint: Resolve the only daughter before tracing the boy.
- K is a man. K says: “That girl’s mother is my mother’s only daughter.” What is the girl to K?
Show answer
Correct answer: D
K is male, so the mother’s only daughter cannot be K. She is K’s sister. The girl is that sister’s daughter: K’s niece (भांजी).
Option A: Unlike the opening puzzle, the speaker cannot be the only daughter.
Option B: The girl is below the sister, not the speaker’s parent.
Option C: The girl’s mother is K’s sister, not the girl herself.
Hint: Compare the speaker’s stated gender with “daughter”.
- P is Q’s father. Q is R’s brother. No shared parent is otherwise identified. Must P be R’s father?
Show answer
Correct answer: C
Q and R could share father P. Or they could share a mother but have different fathers. Both fit the statements, so P’s being R’s father is not forced. It is also not ruled out.
Option A: The clue does not say full siblings or that both parents are shared.
Option B: Missing parenthood evidence does not establish an uncle relation.
Option D: The brother relation is explicitly given and is consistent.
Hint: Try one shared-father case and one shared-mother-only case.
- A is B’s husband. B is C’s mother. Which one additional fact would guarantee that A is C’s father?
Show answer
Correct answer: B
“Husband” already states that A is male. If C is A’s child, the missing parent-child link is supplied, making A the father. C’s gender and age do not supply that link.
Option A: A child’s gender does not identify that child’s father.
Option C: This is already known from “mother” and adds no parent link.
Option D: Being older is not evidence of parenthood.
Hint: Which of two ingredients is missing: A’s gender or A’s parenthood?
- J is the father of K and L. K is M’s mother; L is N’s father. M is male, but N’s gender is not stated. What is N to M?
Show answer
Correct answer: D
K and L share father J. K is female and L male, so L is K’s brother. From M, L is the maternal uncle and N is that uncle’s child. M’s male gender tells us nothing about N’s gender.
Option A: The question gives M’s gender, not N’s.
Option B: No clue says N is female.
Option C: The parents are siblings; M and N are cousins.
Hint: Trace from M through mother K, then her brother L.
- P is Q’s mother. Q is R’s father. R is S’s mother. What is P to S?
Show answer
Correct answer: A
The parent path is P → Q → R → S: three links. R is S’s mother; Q is R’s father, so Q is S’s maternal grandfather. P is that grandfather’s mother, a great-grandmother.
Option B: S’s maternal grandmother would be the mother of R; P is the mother of Q.
Option C: The path from S first goes through the mother, and spans three generations.
Option D: This discards two intermediate generations.
Hint: Count all three links, then describe the branch from S.
- D is the father of E and F. E is female and F is male. G is E’s son; H is F’s daughter. What is H to G?
Show answer
Correct answer: C
E is G’s mother. E and F share father D, so F is E’s brother. H is F’s daughter, hence G’s maternal uncle’s daughter.
Option A: E and F are siblings, not the same parent.
Option B: From G, the route begins with the mother, not father.
Option D: H is the uncle’s daughter, not a sibling of G’s mother.
Hint: Start with G’s mother E and identify her sibling F.
- A is a man. P is A’s mother’s only daughter. Q is P’s daughter. R is Q’s son. Which exact description of R’s relation to A is supported?
Show answer
Correct answer: B
A is male, so P is not A. P is A’s sister. Q is that sister’s daughter, and R is Q’s son. Therefore R is A’s sister’s daughter’s son. The full path is clearer than guessing an unfamiliar short label.
Option A: This wrongly merges A with the mother’s only daughter P.
Option C: P is a sister, and this answer also loses the Q generation.
Option D: This stops in A’s own generation and ignores Q and R.
Hint: First identify P; then keep both downward links Q and R.
Leave with a method, not a score
Before your next attempt, diagnose the kind of error:
- Direction or generation: redraw parent → child, then answer from the requested person. Revisit Lesson 1.
- Wrong branch or reverse label: say the full path aloud, then shorten it. Revisit Lesson 2.
- Invented fact: mark the gap and try two compatible cases. Revisit the unknown-information checks above.
- Only/code mistake: replace descriptions and symbols with named people and plain statements before drawing.
A good solution is a short proof: “This relation follows because these links connect these people.” An honest “not enough information” identifies the missing fact; it is not a substitute for tracing known links.
You have completed the three-lesson prototype, not the whole SSC CGL syllabus. All four subjects are mapped, but only this Blood Relations module is developed.
References and originality
Syllabus: SSC CGL 2026 notice, §13.10.1, checked 18 October 2026. Independent teaching material; not SSC-endorsed and not official past-paper questions.
Learning-design inspiration: Brilliant’s teaching approach and the answer-rationale pattern in Khan Academy’s Perseus radio component. All family puzzles, explanations and diagrams here are original. No third-party lesson text, artwork or application code is copied. The maps are static learning diagrams; steps and answer checks use PPDF’s existing native interactions.
Quick reference
Decode locally. Identify the reference person. Merge identities only when the clue proves it. A missing fact is not a false fact. To prove an answer is undetermined, show two compatible cases. Three consecutive downward parent links span great-grandparent to great-grandchild; describe an exact path when a short kinship label would be unclear.
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