Direction: The following consists of a question and two statements numbered I…

2023

Direction: The following consists of a question and two statements numbered I and II given below it. You have to decide whether the data provided in the statements are sufficient to answer the question.

What is Rohit's rank in the class?

Statement I. Rohit's rank is 24 less than Nandani's rank.

Statement II. Archana's rank is 38 more than Rohit's rank. Nandani's rank is 10 less than Archana's rank.

  1. A.

    Statement I is sufficient.

  2. B.

    Statement II is sufficient.

  3. C.

    Either statement I or II is sufficient.

  4. D.

    Statements I and II together are not sufficient.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: D

Concept: In a Data Sufficiency question, a statement is sufficient only if it fixes the exact numeric value being asked for. A statement (or set of statements) that gives only the relative difference between unknown quantities — without anchoring even one of them to an actual known value — can never fix an exact value for any of them, however many such relative statements are combined.

Application: Let Rohit's rank = R (unknown).

  1. From Statement I: Rohit's rank is 24 less than Nandani's rank, so Nandani's rank = R + 24. This only relates R to Nandani's rank, which is itself unknown — R stays undetermined. Statement I alone is not sufficient.

  2. From Statement II: Archana's rank = R + 38, and Nandani's rank = Archana's rank − 10, so Nandani's rank = R + 28. Every value here is expressed only relative to R, with nothing anchored to an actual number. Statement II alone is not sufficient.

  3. Combining Statement I and Statement II: together they still only describe how Rohit's, Nandani's, and Archana's ranks sit relative to one another — neither statement supplies a single absolute rank value or the total number of students that could pin R down to an actual number. So even together, Rohit's exact rank cannot be found.

Cross-check: Notice that Statement I gives Nandani's rank = R + 24, while Statement II gives Nandani's rank = R + 28 — two different expressions for the same quantity, so the exact numbers in the two statements are not fully consistent with each other. This does not change the conclusion, though: even a mutually consistent pair of purely relative-offset statements would still never anchor R to an actual number (no statement gives an absolute rank or the total class size), so the data remains insufficient either way — confirming that both statements together are not sufficient.

Hence, the correct choice is: statements I and II together are not sufficient.

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