Relationship Concepts
About 7 min · General Intelligence and Reasoning · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 474 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Relationship Concepts (commonly known as Blood Relations) test your ability to decode family connections and trace logical links between people. The problems range from straightforward "How is A related to B?" queries to multi-layered pointing statements like "Introducing a man, Sita said he is the son of my grandfather's only daughter."
Key ideas
- Direct relations vs. indirect relations: Direct relations are parent-child or sibling pairs. Indirect relations require two or more steps (e.g., father's brother = uncle, sister's son = nephew).
- Gender matters at every step: Always note whether a person is male or female. Use symbols (△ for male, ○ for female) in your rough work.
- Generation levels: Keep track of which generation each person belongs to — grandparents at top, parents in middle, children/self at bottom, grandchildren below. Never place someone on the wrong level.
- Only child / only son / only daughter: These terms eliminate siblings and simplify the tree. "Only son of my father" said by a male means himself — he has no brothers (he may still have sisters); said by a female it means her only brother.
- Pointing questions: Treat the speaker as the reference point. Decode the introduced person's relation to the speaker step-by-step. The phrase "pointing to a photograph" or "introducing a man" signals this pattern.
Watch out for
- Forgetting gender in "only son/daughter" statements → "Father's only son" could be you, so son of that person is your son. Students mistakenly treat "only son" as a brother. Fix: For a male speaker, "my father's only son" is the speaker himself (no brothers);
- Confusing "brother-in-law" pathways → Brother-in-law can be your spouse's brother OR your sibling's husband. Students pick one without checking context. Fix: Check if a marriage link is explicitly given. Draw both spouses and trace from there.
- Mixing maternal and paternal sides → Calling mother's brother a paternal uncle. Fix: Paternal = father's side, Maternal = mother's side. Always track which parent you're branching from.
Quick reference
- Father's/Mother's son/daughter = Sibling or Self.
- Only son of father = Myself (male, no brothers).
- Brother's son = Nephew; Sister's son = Nephew.
- Father's brother = Uncle (Paternal); Mother's brother = Uncle (Maternal).
- In pointing questions, speaker is the reference; decode introduced person step-by-step.
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. Pointing to a photograph, Ravi says, "She is the daughter of my grandfather's only son." How is the woman in the photograph related to Ravi?
2. A is the brother of B. B is the sister of C. D is the father of A. Based on these statements, which of the following statements cannot be definitely true?
3. Introducing a man, a woman says, "His wife is the only daughter of my mother." How is the woman related to the man?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.
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