UPSC Prelims 2016 CSAT Paper II · Q19 of 79 Comprehension medium

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 of the following is definitely a man ?

  1. (a) P
  2. (b) S
  3. (c) Q ✓ UPSC's answer
  4. (d) None of the above

Why the answer is (c)

• Q is explicitly stated to be the brother of P, which defines Q as male.

• Since Q is a brother, Q is definitely a man.

• P and S are unmarried students, but their gender is not definitively established as male (P could be female, and S's gender is unspecified).

• T is a man, but T is not among the options (a), (b), or (c).

• Therefore, Q is the only person among the given options who is definitely a man.

Why the other options are wrong

(a) P
P is a student and sibling of Q, but the passage does not specify P's gender, so P is not definitely a man.
(b) S
S is an unmarried student, but the passage provides no information regarding S's gender.
(d) None of the above
Option (c) Q is definitely a man because Q is identified as the brother of P, making 'None of the above' incorrect.

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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