UPSC Prelims 2016 CSAT Paper II · Q16 of 79 Comprehension easy

Passage

Directions for the following 5 (five) items : Consider the following information and answer the five items that follow : There are five persons in a group — P, Q, R, S and T. The group has one doctor, one lawyer and one artist. P and S are unmarried students. T is a man married to one of the group members. Q is the brother of P and is neither doctor nor artist. R is not doctor.

Who is the artist ?

  1. (a) P
  2. (b) Q
  3. (c) R ✓ UPSC's answer
  4. (d) T

Why the answer is (c)

• Q is the brother of P and is explicitly stated to be neither a doctor nor an artist, which means Q must be the lawyer.

• R is explicitly stated to not be a doctor.

• P and S are unmarried students, and T is a man married to one of the group members, implying T is not a student; however, the key deduction relies on the remaining roles.

• Since Q is the lawyer and R is not the doctor, R must be the artist or the doctor is someone else. Let's re-evaluate: Q is Lawyer. R is not Doctor. P and S are students (likely not the professionals? No, the group has one doctor, one lawyer, one artist. The other two are unspecified or students). Wait, the prompt says 'The group has one doctor, one lawyer and one artist.' It does not say the others are not professionals, but P and S are 'unmarried students'. Usually, in these logic puzzles, 'student' implies they are not the primary professional role holder if the roles are distinct, but let's look at the constraints strictly.

• Q is Lawyer. R is not Doctor. If R were the Artist, then the Doctor must be P, S, or T. If R were the Doctor, it contradicts 'R is not doctor'. So R is either Artist or... wait. Let's look at T. T is a man. Q is P's brother. P and S are unmarried. T is married to one of the group members. The group members are P, Q, R, S, T. T is married to one of P, Q, R, S. Since P and S are unmarried, T is not married to P or S. Q is P's brother (male). T is a man. So T is married to R. Thus R is female.

• Roles: Doctor, Lawyer, Artist. Q is Lawyer. R is not Doctor. So R is Artist or... if R is not Doctor and not Lawyer (Q is), R must be Artist. Therefore, R is the Artist.

Why the other options are wrong

(a) P
P is an unmarried student and there is no information assigning the artist role to P, while R is deduced to be the artist.
(b) Q
Q is explicitly stated to be neither a doctor nor an artist, making Q the lawyer.
(d) T
T is the husband of R and there is no information assigning the artist role to T, while R is deduced to be the artist.

Asked in the CSAT Paper II of the UPSC Civil Services Preliminary Examination 2016, held on 7 August 2016. Question and answer key: Union Public Service Commission. Explanation: UPSC Answer Check.

Reading the answer is not the same as getting it right under a clock. Practise this question with UPSC's negative marking, and anything you miss goes into an error notebook until you get it right twice.

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