Blood Relations

What the topic really tests

Blood-relation questions never test your knowledge of families. They test whether you can turn spoken sentences into a small drawing without a single mistake. That drawing is called a family tree. Once the tree is correct, the answer is read off it in one line. Almost every wrong answer in this topic comes from a wrong tree, and a wrong tree almost always comes from one of two bad habits: assuming a gender that was never stated, or answering in the wrong direction.

The symbols (use them every time)

Draw people as small boxes, one generation per row:

• M or a + sign beside a name for a male; F or − for a female.
• A double line (=) between a husband and wife.
• An arrow pointing down from parent to child.
• A horizontal line between brothers and sisters. Elders go on the top rows, their children below them, grandchildren below that. Two people joined by marriage always sit on the same row.

The three-step method

1. Fix the genders first. Read every word of the question and mark a gender only where a word gives it: father, brother, son, uncle, nephew, husband, grandfather → male; mother, sister, daughter, aunt, niece, wife, grandmother → female. Words like cousin, child, person give no gender. Leave those blank. Never guess.
2. Turn each sentence into an arrow. "Rita's son is Amit" becomes Rita → Amit (M). "Suresh is Meena's brother" puts both under the same parents' arrow. Do this one sentence at a time, in any order.
3. Read the answer from the tree. Find the two people named in the question, count the steps between them (each arrow is one generation), and write the relation in the direction the question asks.

The direction rule (the biggest mark-saver)

"How is A related to B?" always means: describe A from B's side — A is B's ___. So start at B, walk the tree to A, and name what A is to B. If the question says "How is B related to A?", the same tree gives the opposite word: if A is B's grandmother, B is A's grandson. Practise reading both directions from one tree — the exam recycles the same tree with the question reversed.

Generation counting

Each parent-child arrow is one generation:

• 1 arrow up = father/mother; 2 up = grandfather/grandmother; 3 up = great-grandfather/great-grandmother.
• 1 arrow down = son/daughter; 2 down = grandson/granddaughter; 3 down = great-grandson.
• Sideways (same parents) = brother/sister; sideways through a marriage = brother-in-law/sister-in-law.
• Parent's brother or sister = uncle/aunt. Uncle's or aunt's child = cousin, never nephew.
• Sibling's child = nephew (boy) or niece (girl).

"Only" words

• Only child = the person has no brother and no sister.
• Only son = no other boys; there may still be daughters.
• Only daughter = no other girls; there may still be sons. These three lines solve a large share of the tricky questions, so read the exact word — son, daughter or child — before drawing.

Quick revision

• Draw the tree; never hold a chain in your head.
• Mark a gender only when a word states it. Blank means "leave blank".
• "How is A related to B?" = name A from B's side.
• Each arrow = one generation: 1 up father, 2 up grandfather, 1 down son, 2 down grandson.
• Parent's sibling = uncle/aunt; their child = cousin; sibling's child = nephew/niece.
• Only child ≠ only son ≠ only daughter — read the exact word.