Blood relations questions test your ability to decode kinship — who is whose mother, son, niece, or brother-in-law — from either a narrative chain or a coded symbol string. SSC CHSL typically throws these in two flavors: plain-English chains ("A is the father of B, B is the sister of C…") and coded-operator chains ("A + B means A is the father of B, so what does A + B ÷ C mean?").
Think of every blood-relations question as building a family tree node by node. You are never actually reasoning about blood — you are doing graph traversal. Each statement adds one directed edge between two nodes. Your job is to find the shortest path between the start node and the end node, then name that path as a kinship term.
Here is the analogy that makes this stick: imagine a WhatsApp family group. Each person is a dot. Each relationship is an arrow connecting two dots. Male members are squares, female members are circles. Your job is to draw all the arrows from the clues, then read off the relationship between two specific dots. Once you stop treating these as "family puzzles" and start treating them as "draw-the-arrows problems," your accuracy jumps immediately.
The gender of each person is your most critical data point. Most errors come from assuming gender incorrectly. The word "married" tells you the two people are of opposite genders. The words "son/father/brother/husband/uncle/nephew" fix male gender. "Daughter/mother/sister/wife/aunt/niece" fix female gender. Ambiguous names (A, B, P, Q) get their gender assigned only when a clue forces it.
For SSC CHSL, you will see roughly one to two blood-relations questions per attempt. They are considered easy-to-medium marks — solvable in 60–90 seconds if you diagram quickly, but a trap if you try to hold the chain in your head without writing.
Type 1 — Narrative chain: "P is the son of Q. Q is married to R. R is the sister of S. How is P related to S?" Draw each statement as an arrow. Traverse the path from P to S and name it.
Type 2 — Coded operators: Symbols (×, +, ÷, @, &) are defined to mean specific relationships. You decode the expression left-to-right and build the chain.
Type 3 — Pointing/picture statement: "Pointing to a photograph, Ravi says, 'She is the daughter of my father's only son.' Who is she to Ravi?" Work from the reference person outward — do not start from the unknown person.
Type 4 — Statement-verification: "Which of the following means A is the nephew of B?" — you check which coded string produces that relationship.
Step 1 — List all persons. Write each unique letter/name down the left margin.
Step 2 — Assign gender where possible. Mark M or F next to each name. Use role words: son/father/brother/husband = Male; daughter/mother/sister/wife = Female. "Married" = the two are of opposite genders.
Step 3 — Draw the tree. Put parents above children. Use a horizontal bar for marriage. Connect siblings at the same level with a bracket. Do not guess — only draw what the clue explicitly states.
Step 4 — Trace the path. Find the two target nodes. Walk the path between them, noting each step: "go up to parent → go across to sibling → go down to child."
Step 5 — Name the relationship. Convert the path to a kinship term using the Reference Table below.
| Path from A to B | Relationship (A is ___ of B) | |---|---| | Up 1 (parent) | Father / Mother | | Up 2 (grandparent) | Grandfather / Grandmother | | Up 1, across (parent's sibling) | Uncle / Aunt | | Across (same parents) | Brother / Sister | | Down 1 (child) | Son / Daughter | | Down 2 (grandchild) | Grandson / Granddaughter | | Across, down 1 (sibling's child) | Nephew / Niece | | Marriage cross | Husband / Wife / In-law |
The "in-law" chain: if you reach someone through a marriage edge rather than a blood edge, that person is an in-law. A mother's sibling is aunt/uncle (blood). A wife's mother is mother-in-law (marriage cross).
Given: K = R ÷ M
Decode left to right, one operator at a time:
K = R → K is the sister of R (gender: K is Female, R is Female here unless otherwise stated)R ÷ M → R is the mother of MNow stitch: K is the sister of R. R is the mother of M. Therefore K is the sister of M's mother = maternal aunt of M.
The key discipline: never skip ahead. Read one operator, fix that edge, then read the next operator.
"Father's only son" = the speaker himself (if male) or the speaker's brother (if female, assuming one brother).
"Mother's husband" = the speaker's own father (in a standard family; SSC CHSL does not test divorced/remarried setups unless explicitly stated).
These disguised self-references are the most common trap in pointing-type questions. When you see "my father's only son," stop and ask: is this person themselves? If the speaker is female, then yes — the only son is the brother. If the speaker is male, the only son is the speaker.
When a clue assigns two conflicting genders to the same person, re-read the clue. Coded-relation questions sometimes rely on you confusing the subject and object of the operator. In A @ B, the subject is A, not B. The operator describes A's role. Keep your arrows directional.
As you read each clue, immediately draw a square for male persons and a circle for female persons next to their letter. When a clue assigns a gendered role (son, wife, etc.), the shape is decided — cross out any earlier ambiguous placeholder. This visual lock prevents the single most common error in blood relations: swapping genders mid-chain. Standard approach (holding genders in memory across 6-clue chain): 30% error rate. Box-circle method: near-zero gender errors. Step saved: you never re-read clues to recheck gender.
Every blood-relation statement is reversible. If "A is the father of B," then "B is the son/daughter of A." When the question asks "how is X related to Y?" and you have found "Y is the uncle of X," simply flip: X is the nephew/niece of Y. This reversal takes 3 seconds and eliminates the need to re-trace the entire chain. Standard re-trace: 20 seconds. Flip method: 3 seconds.
Assign generation numbers: the oldest known ancestor = Generation 0. Each child level = +1. If A is at Gen 0, A's child is Gen 1, grandchild is Gen 2. When the question asks how two people in the chain are related, subtract their generation numbers. Difference of 2 = grandparent-grandchild. Difference of 0 = siblings or cousins. Difference of 1 = parent-child. This turns a 6-step trace into one subtraction. Works for all plain-narrative chains. Step count: trace method = 5–6 steps; generation subtraction = 1 subtraction + gender check = 2 steps.
In coded-relation chains, before decoding anything, write out each symbol's direction as "left is ___, right is ___." For example, if A + B means "A is the father of B," then + = "left is father of right." Now read the full expression like a sentence. K + L ÷ M = "K is father of L; L is mother of M" = K is the maternal grandfather of M. You eliminate all re-reading of the definition table because you have pre-loaded the direction. Saves: 2–3 re-checks per question = roughly 25 seconds per coded question.
Whenever you see "mother's husband," "father's wife," or "parent's spouse," substitute immediately with "father" or "mother" (in standard SSC CHSL family setups). This collapses a two-step chain into zero steps. Similarly, "father's only son" → substitute with "self (if male)" or "brother (if female)." These substitution triggers compress 3-step pointing questions into 1-step questions. Example: "my mother's husband's son" = "my brother" — done in 5 seconds vs. 30 seconds of tree-drawing.
When you see a blood-relations question, run this decision tree in under 10 seconds:
Is it coded (symbols defined)?
Is it a pointing/picture statement?
Is it a plain narrative chain (3+ clues)?
After building your diagram, ask:
If any answer is "no," re-read only the clue that is ambiguous — do not re-read all clues. Target the gap, fix it, move on.
Why this question: This is the cleanest example of a coded-expression chain — exactly what SSC CHSL repeats every year with slight symbol variations.
Solving path:
K = R: K is the sister of R. Therefore K is female.R ÷ M: R is the mother of M. Therefore R is female, M is R's child.Why this question: A multi-step plain narrative chain with a disguised grandparent relationship — tests generation-counting.
Solving path:
Why this question: Classic "mother's husband" pointing-type — tests the self-reference substitution.
Solving path:
Why this question: Tests in-law relationship — a frequently confused category.
Solving path:
Why this question: Multi-person chain requiring you to track in-law paths without confusing blood and marriage edges.
Solving path:
Why this question: Establishes the relationship between two adults via their shared child — tests husband identification.
Solving path:
Assuming gender from names. In coded questions especially, letters like A, B, P, Q have no inherent gender. Assign gender only when a clue forces it. Assuming "A" is male and then getting a contradiction wastes time and forces re-reads.
Forgetting to flip the answer. After tracing the path from X to Y, you know "Y is the uncle of X." But the question asks "how is X related to Y?" — the answer is nephew or niece, not uncle. Always check which direction the question is asking.
Reading coded operators from right to left. In A + B, A is the subject. The operator describes A's role. Many candidates read it as "B is described by +" and get the direction reversed, producing the inverse relationship every time.
Treating "only son" carelessly. "My father's only son" is the speaker himself (if male). If the speaker is female, "father's only son" is the speaker's brother. Do not add extra siblings — the word "only" is a constraint, not decoration.
Mixing in-law and blood edges. A marriage edge changes the relationship type. The sister of your mother is your aunt (blood). The sister of your mother-in-law is not your aunt — she is your wife's aunt. Keep marriage-cross edges visually distinct in your diagram (use a double line or different color).
Building the diagram without fixing contradictions. If a clue forces a person to be both male and female, you have misread one statement. Do not guess — go back to the specific clue that creates the conflict. A flawed diagram produces a confident wrong answer every time.