Blood Relations
🔒 Log in to trackMulti-statement tree puzzles
🔒 Log in to trackThe statement-list format: three to six sentences describe one family, then a relation is asked. The sentences are deliberately shuffled — husbands before wives, elders after juniors — so that reading them in order gives a tangled tree. Reorder, don't obey: place the oldest generation first, hang the children under them, then attach marriages.
Worked skeleton (the shape CGL reuses constantly):
- Dhanraj = Kamla; children Suresh (M), Veena (−)
- Suresh = Rita; children Amit (M), Pooja (−)
- Veena = Mohan; son Rohit (M)
- Amit = Sneha; son Karan (M)
From this one tree you can answer: Rohit↔Pooja (cousins), Dhanraj↔Pooja (grandfather), Sneha↔Rita (daughter-in-law), Kamla↔Rohit (grandmother), and counting questions ('how many males?' — six here: Dhanraj, Suresh, Mohan, Amit, Rohit, Karan).
Chain questions compress the same idea: 'Mohan is Rekha's father. Ramesh is Mohan's father. How is Ramesh related to Rekha?' Two arrows up from Rekha — Mohan, then Ramesh — grandfather. Count the arrows; each arrow is one generation.
Detailed notes
What these questions look like
You get three to six sentences about one family, then a question: "How is X related to Y?", "How many males are there?", or "Who is the grandfather of Z?" The sentences are deliberately shuffled — the wife is mentioned before the husband, the grandfather after the grandchild. Reading them in the given order and answering from memory is exactly how marks are lost. The sentences are raw material; you must build the tree, then answer.
Top-down reconstruction
Start with the oldest person — the one who is nobody's child in the whole set. Place them at the top. Then attach everyone else:
- Hang the named children below their parent.
- Join husbands and wives with
=on the same row. - Repeat until every name in the question sits on the tree. A tree built this way never needs revising, because each sentence fits an empty slot instead of fighting the earlier ones.
Reading relations from the finished tree
- Find both people. The relation is the shortest path between them.
- Going up through A's parent to B: B is a grandparent. Going down through A's child to B: B is a grandchild.
- Crossing a marriage line adds "-in-law": spouse's mother = mother-in-law, sibling's spouse or spouse's sibling = brother/sister-in-law, child's spouse = son/daughter-in-law.
- Two people whose parents are brothers/sisters are cousins — one generation apart, joined sideways, not up or down.
Counting questions
"How many males/females?" and "How many members?" are read straight off the tree, tick by tick:
- Write +/− beside every name while drawing, only where a sentence fixes the gender.
- Count the ticks for the asked gender. Blank-gender names are not counted — and if the question forces a total, the blanks are the trap.
- Grandparents' generation, married-in wives/husbands, and children all count. A person who is only named as "X's spouse" counts too.
Chain questions
Some puzzles shrink to two or three sentences: "Mohan is Rekha's father. Ramesh is Mohan's father. How is Ramesh related to Rekha?" Even here, draw the two arrows. Then simply count: two arrows up from Rekha = grandparent level; Ramesh is male = grandfather. Three arrows down from someone = great-grandchild. The arrow count fixes the relation family, the gender fixes the exact word.
Quick revision
- Rebuild top-down: oldest at the top, children below, marriages on the same row.
- Shortest path on the tree = the relation.
- Every marriage crossing adds "-in-law".
- Aunt's/uncle's child = cousin; sibling's child = nephew/niece.
- Counting: tick genders while drawing; never count a name whose gender stayed blank.
- Chains: count arrows for generations, then apply gender.
Types of questions asked
Every way this subtopic shows up in exams — how to recognise it, the formula or logic to use, and a solved example.
Type 1: Chain relations across generationsvery common3 practice Q
Sentences like 'A's son is B, B's daughter is C' — each sentence hangs one person below the last.
- Draw the chain top-down, one arrow per sentence.
- Count arrows between the asked pair: 1 = parent/child, 2 = grandparent/grandchild, 3 = great-grandparent.
- Fix the exact word with the gender.
Why it works: generation distance and gender are the only two facts a relation needs; the chain gives both by counting.
Example: Ramesh is the father of Vinod. Vinod is the father of Anita. How is Ramesh related to Anita?
Ramesh → Vinod → Anita: two arrows up from Anita, male → grandfather.
Type 2: In-law relationsvery common2 practice Q
A wife/husband appears, and the asked pair are not blood relatives (spouse's parent, sibling's spouse, child's spouse).
- Draw the marriage with
=on one row. - Apply the in-law map: spouse's parent = mother/father-in-law; sibling's spouse or spouse's sibling = brother/sister-in-law; child's spouse = son/daughter-in-law.
- If two marriages chain (spouse of spouse's sibling), take one crossing at a time.
Why it works: every '-in-law' word is exactly one marriage crossing away from a plain blood relation.
Example: Sneha is the wife of Rita's son Amit. How is Sneha related to Rita?
Sneha married Rita's child → one marriage crossing from 'daughter' → daughter-in-law.
Type 3: Counting males and females in a full treecommon2 practice Q
A multi-sentence tree plus 'How many male/female members are there?'
- Draw the full tree; write +/− beside each name only where a word fixes it.
- Count ticks for the asked gender — including married-in spouses.
- Leave blank-gender names out, and re-read 'only' statements before finalising.
Why it works: ticking while drawing turns a memory test into a five-second count.
Example: Mr. and Mrs. Rao have two sons. The elder son's wife and their two daughters live with them. How many females?
Mrs. Rao + daughter-in-law + 2 granddaughters = 4 females (the husband and the two sons are male).
Type 4: Shuffled multi-statement reconstructionvery common2 practice Q
Four to six sentences in a jumbled order describing one family, then 'How is X related to Y?'
- Find the person nobody calls a child — the tree root.
- Attach children, then marriages, until every name sits on the tree.
- Answer from the shortest path between the asked pair.
Why it works: statements given out of order still describe one tree; rebuilding top-down makes each statement fit one empty slot.
Example: Anil is the brother of Sunil. Sunil is the father of Mohan. Ritu is the daughter of Kavita. Mohan is the brother of Ritu. How is Kavita related to Anil?
Mohan and Ritu share parents; Ritu's mother is Kavita, so Sunil's wife is Kavita. Wife of Anil's brother → sister-in-law.
Type 5: Cousin relations across two branchescommon2 practice Q
One family splits into two married children; the asked pair come from different branches.
- Place the common grandparents at the top; hang the two siblings below them.
- Hang each sibling's children on their own branch.
- The two children of the siblings are cousins — whatever their genders.
Why it works: cousins are children of siblings; no other path connects two branches.
Example: Rahul's mother's brother is Vikas. Vikas's daughter is Neha. How is Neha related to Rahul?
Vikas is a sibling of Rahul's mother; Neha is Vikas's child. Children of siblings → cousin.
Shortcut tricks
⚡ Top-down reconstruction
Find the person who is nobody's child (the oldest named) and start there. Every other statement then attaches downward or sideways by marriage. A tree built top-down never needs revising.
Example: Q. 'Rita's son is Amit. Amit's son is Karan. How is Karan related to Rita?'
Sol. Rita → Amit → Karan, two arrows down from Rita: Karan is her grandson.
The elder-most statement is the tree root; build downward from it.
⚡ Arrow-count for generations
Relation from arrow count: 1 down = son/daughter, 2 down = grandson/granddaughter, 1 up = father/mother, 2 up = grandfather/grandmother. Sideways through a marriage adds '-in-law'.
Example: Q. 'Mohan is Rekha's father. Ramesh is Mohan's father. How is Ramesh related to Rekha?'
Sol. Rekha ↑ Mohan ↑ Ramesh — two arrows up → grandfather.
Count arrows first, fix gender second — the count picks the relation family.
Where students lose marks
Reading statements in exam order instead of reconstructing generation-wise.
Calling an uncle's child a nephew — that child is a cousin.
Forgetting that a spouse's siblings are also brothers/sisters-in-law.
Practice sets — 18 questions
Sets of 10, mixed across the question types above. Each answer comes with a step-by-step explanation.
Topic test · 10 questions
Suggested time 6 min · wrong answers go to your mistake notebook automatically.