Logical & analytical reasoning

Answer: (b) There is at least one supporter of ‘party Y’ who knew some supporters of ‘party X’ as a friend.

The information is about a group of party X supporters who knew Z and backed his campaign strategy, and it says some of them had friends in party Y. So at least one person in party Y has a party X supporter as a friend.

1. Call the group described G: supporters of party X who knew Z and supported his campaign strategy.
2. 'Some of them had friends in party Y' tells us that G is not empty and that at least one member of G has a friend in party Y.
3. Friendship works both ways, so that person in party Y knows a supporter of party X as a friend — option (b).
4. Check (c) and (d): G itself consists of party X supporters who knew Z and backed his strategy, so both 'No …' statements are false.

• ✗ (a) The information says nothing about how party Y's supporters viewed the alliance; it speaks only of party X supporters.
• ✓ (b) Some members of the group had friends in party Y, so at least one person in party Y counts a party X supporter as a friend.
• ✗ (c) The group described consists of party X supporters who did support Z's strategy, so this is false.
• ✗ (d) The same group knew Z, so it is false that no party X supporter knew Z.

Remember · 'Some of them' confirms the group exists. A 'No …' statement fails as soon as one member of that group is shown to exist.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (c) 3 only

The information confirms that some party X supporters knew Z and supported his strategy. That makes statement 1 true and statement 3 false. Statement 2, about supporters who opposed the strategy, is neither confirmed nor contradicted, so only statement 3 can be called not correct.

1. From 'some of them had friends in party Y', there exist party X supporters who knew Z and supported his strategy.
2. Statement 1: some party X supporters knew Z — true.
3. Statement 3: it says no party X supporter backed Z's strategy — this contradicts the information, so it is not correct.
4. Statement 2: the information is silent about supporters who opposed the strategy, so it cannot be marked incorrect; it is simply not established.
5. Only statement 3 is not correct.

• ✓ 1. The supporters described knew Z, so 'some supporters of party X knew Z' must hold.
• ✓ 2. Not contradicted: the information says nothing about supporters who opposed the strategy, so this may well be true and cannot be called incorrect.
• ✗ 3. The information describes party X supporters who did support Z's campaign strategy, so this statement is false.

Remember · 'Not correct' means contradicted by the information. A statement the information is merely silent about is not proved wrong.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (a) Only conclusion I follows from the statement.

The statement says that even a natural gift like a good voice must be practised to improve and excel — that is, a gift needs nurturing. It says nothing about people whose voice is not good, so only Conclusion I follows.

1. The statement: a good voice is a gift, yet it must be practised to improve and excel.
2. Conclusion I generalises this correctly — a natural gift still needs nurturing — so it follows.
3. Conclusion II is about people without a good voice, whom the statement never mentions, so it does not follow.

• ✓ I Practising 'to improve and excel' is exactly the nurturing and care the conclusion speaks of.
• ✗ II The statement concerns only people who have a good voice; whether others should practise lies outside it, however sensible it sounds.

Remember · A conclusion must come from the statement itself; one about a group the statement never covers does not follow.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (c) Q is the father of P.

P + R means P is the son of R, and R − Q means R is the wife of Q. So Q is the husband of P's mother R, which makes Q the father of P.

1. P + R → P is the son of R.
2. R − Q → R is the wife of Q, so Q is R's husband.
3. P is the son of R, and R's husband is Q, so Q is the father of P.

Remember · Decode coded relations one link at a time, left to right, noting each person's gender as you go.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) Neither 1 nor 2

'Good for health' says a morning walk helps. It does not say that every healthy person walks in the morning, nor that good health is impossible without it — so neither conclusion follows.

1. The statement gives a benefit: a morning walk improves health.
2. Conclusion 1 reverses it (healthy → morning walker); a benefit does not make the habit universal among healthy people.
3. Conclusion 2 upgrades 'good for' to 'essential'; there may be other ways to stay healthy.

• ✗ 1. It reverses the statement; healthy people may stay fit in other ways.
• ✗ 2. 'Good for' is not 'essential for'; the statement does not rule out other routes to good health.

Remember · 'Good for' never means 'essential for', and 'A helps B' never means 'all B do A'.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (d) 1 is false.

'Some colours are not pleasant' is the exact contradictory of 'All colours are pleasant', so if statement 4 is true, statement 1 must be false. Statements 2 and 3 could go either way.

1. Statement 4 (some colours are not pleasant) and statement 1 (all colours are pleasant) are contradictories: exactly one of them is true.
2. 4 is true, so 1 is false — definitely.
3. Statement 2 may or may not hold, because the remaining colours may or may not be pleasant; so 2 and 3 are both undetermined.
4. Only (d) is certain.

• ✗ (a) 1 is false, so '1 and 2 are true' cannot hold.
• ✗ (b) 4 does not rule out some colours being pleasant, so 3 is not certain.
• ✗ (c) 2 may still be true — some colours can be pleasant while others are not.
• ✓ (d) 'Some … are not' is the contradictory of 'All … are'; when one is true, the other is false.

Remember · Contradictory pairs: All vs Some-not, and No vs Some. If one of a pair is true, the other is false; other pairs stay undetermined.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (b) A is the husband of D.

A, E and B are sons, so they are the three males, and C, D and F are the three females. D's son must be B, because A and E are F's sons; so D is B's mother and A is B's father. With only one married couple, A is D's husband.

1. A and E are sons of F, and B is the son of A — so A, B and E are males. Equal numbers means C, D and F are the three females.
2. D is the mother of a boy and a girl. Her boy cannot be A or E, whose mother is F, so it is B.
3. B's father is A and B's mother is D, so A and D are the only married couple.
4. D's girl is C; F, the mother of A, belongs to the older generation.
5. So A is the husband of D.

• ✗ (a) A and B are sons, so they are males.
• ✓ (b) A is B's father and D is B's mother; with only one married couple, A and D are husband and wife.
• ✗ (c) E is F's son, and F is A's mother, so neither is D's child.
• ✗ (d) F is the mother of A, D's husband, so F is D's mother-in-law, not her mother.

Remember · In family puzzles, fix genders first from 'son', 'mother' and similar words, then use 'only one married couple' to pair the parents.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error

Answer: (b) 4

'Colour' is the only word in all three phrases and 5 the only digit in all three codes. 'Chalk' is shared by the first and third phrases, whose codes also share 2. That leaves 4 for 'white' in 254.

1. 'colour' is in all three phrases and 5 is in all three codes, so colour = 5.
2. 'chalk' is in 256 and 254; apart from 5 they share 2, so chalk = 2.
3. 254 = white colour chalk, so white = 4.
4. Check: 256 then gives red = 6, and 589 splits green and flower between 8 and 9.

Remember · In word-to-digit codes, match the word common to two phrases with the digit common to their codes, and eliminate step by step.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2017, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). Permalink · Report an error