How many brothers does Sumit have? Statements: I. Sumit does not have any…
2023
How many brothers does Sumit have? Statements: I. Sumit does not have any sister. II. Sumit’s mother has four sons.
- A.
Statement I alone is sufficient.
- B.
Both statements together are sufficient.
- C.
Statement II alone is sufficient.
- D.
Both statements together are not sufficient.
Attempted by 8 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
In a Data Sufficiency problem, you must judge each statement on its own first, and a statement is "sufficient" only if it pins down a single, definite answer to the exact question asked. The question asks for the NUMBER of brothers, so a statement is sufficient only if it forces one count of brothers and nothing less.
Application
The question asks: how many brothers does Sumit have? A complete answer must be a single number of brothers.
Statement I (Sumit has no sister) only rules out sisters; it says nothing about how many male siblings exist, so the number of brothers could be 0, 1, 2, or any value. It does not fix a count, so on its own it is not sufficient.
Statement II (the mother has four sons) means there are four sons in total, and Sumit is one of them. Removing Sumit himself leaves four minus one, that is three brothers. This gives one definite number, so on its own it is sufficient.
Cross-check
Test the combination as a sanity check: adding Statement I to Statement II does not change the count of three brothers, which confirms Statement II already carried the full information by itself. Since one statement alone settles the question while the other does not, the correct choice is that Statement II alone is sufficient.