Pointing at a photograph, X said to his friend Y, "She is the only daughter of…
2024
Pointing at a photograph, X said to his friend Y, "She is the only daughter of the father of my mother." How is X related to the person in the photograph?
- A.
Daughter
- B.
Son
- C.
Nephew
- D.
Cannot be decided
Attempted by 2 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
In blood-relation puzzles, decode the description from the innermost phrase outward, one relation at a time, and use any gender pronoun in the passage to fix whether the speaker or the referenced person is male or female.
"The father of my mother" = my maternal grandfather.
"The only daughter of [my maternal grandfather]" = my mother, since he has only one daughter.
X refers to the friend as "his friend Y", which confirms X is male.
So the woman in the photograph, being X's mother, combined with X being male, means X is her son.
"Only daughter" guarantees no other daughter exists, so there is no ambiguity about which woman is meant, ruling out "cannot be decided." X is the son of the woman in the photograph.