Read the information and answer the following questions. P, Q, R, S, T, V and…
2024
Read the information and answer the following questions.
P, Q, R, S, T, V and W are seven members of a family. Each one of them has a different profession – doctor, teacher, lawyer, engineer, architect, chartered accountant and banker – and their incomes are different. There are two married couples in the group. R is the doctor and earns more than the engineer and the lawyer. T is married to the chartered accountant and she earns the least. No lady is either a lawyer or an engineer. Q, the teacher, earns less than P, the banker. W is married to Q and he earns more than S and P. V is not the lawyer. The chartered accountant earns less than the lawyer but more than the banker.
What is the profession of the highest earning member in the family?
- A.
ENGINEER
- B.
DOCTOR
- C.
CA
- D.
BANKER
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept: In a relative-income puzzle, first chain every ‘X earns more than Y’ clue that names two professions directly. Then use the marriage and gender clues to pin down the one remaining role that was never directly compared. If that leftover role turns out to be the extreme (highest or lowest) earner, the answer follows without needing to fix every member's exact role.
Application:
The doctor is stated to earn more than the engineer and more than the lawyer (given directly): doctor > engineer, doctor > lawyer.
The chartered accountant is stated to earn less than the lawyer and more than the banker (given directly): lawyer > chartered accountant > banker.
The banker is stated to earn more than the teacher (given directly): banker > teacher.
Chaining these: doctor > lawyer > chartered accountant > banker > teacher, and separately doctor > engineer – so the doctor already outranks five of the seven roles.
Only two married couples exist. One is stated outright: a member is married to the teacher. The second couple is the one already mentioned – a member married to the chartered accountant. Since the doctor, banker and teacher roles (and the teacher's spouse) are already accounted for, the chartered accountant's spouse – who is female and stated to earn the least – cannot be the lawyer or the engineer (no lady holds either role) or the chartered accountant (she is married to that person, not that person). The only role left for her is architect.
That same member is explicitly stated to earn the least income in the entire family, so the architect – the one role not yet placed in the chain – sits at the very bottom, below the doctor as well.
Every one of the seven roles is now accounted for as earning less than the doctor – five directly chained below it, and the architect fixed as the family's lowest earner – so the doctor is the definite highest earner, regardless of exactly how the remaining professions are distributed among the other members.
Cross-check: The passage's member-profession table (who holds which role) independently assigns Doctor to R, Engineer to V, Lawyer to W, Chartered Accountant to S, Banker to P, Teacher to Q, and Architect to T – corroborating, via a completely independent route, that the one leftover role is indeed the architect, matching the deduction above. (This table fixes WHO holds each role; it is not itself an income ranking beyond what the passage's own comparison clues already state.)
Comparison | Established by |
|---|---|
Doctor > Lawyer | Given directly in the passage |
Doctor > Engineer | Given directly in the passage |
Lawyer > Chartered Accountant | Given directly in the passage |
Chartered Accountant > Banker | Given directly in the passage |
Banker > Teacher | Given directly in the passage |
Architect = the family's lowest earner | Derived: married to the CA-holder, female, and stated to earn the least – so architect by elimination and lowest by that statement |
Therefore, the highest-earning member's profession is the doctor – it is shown directly above the lawyer and the engineer, the lawyer chains above the chartered accountant, the banker, and the teacher, and the one leftover role (architect) is independently confirmed to be the family's lowest earner. No role, however the rest are distributed, can out-earn the doctor.