Blood Relations
🔒 Log in to trackMulti-statement tree puzzles
🔒 Log in to trackThese questions give three to six sentences about one family, in a shuffled order, and then ask a relation. Do not read them in order. Find the oldest person, put them on top, and hang everyone else below. A tree built top-down never needs redoing.
What these questions look like
You get three to six sentences about one family. Then comes the ask: how is X related to Y, how many males are there, or who is Z's grandfather.
The sentences are shuffled on purpose. The wife appears before the husband. The grandson appears before the grandfather. Reading them in order and answering from memory is how marks go.
Tip: Treat the sentences as loose parts. Your job is to assemble them into one tree.
Build the tree from the top
Find the root: the person nobody calls a child. Usually a grandfather or a named elder. Put the root on the top row.
- Hang each named child one row below its parent.
- Join each husband and wife with
=on the same row. - Repeat until every name in the question sits on the tree.
A tree built this way never needs rework. Each sentence fills an empty slot instead of fighting the earlier ones.
Example: 'Rita's son is Amit. Amit's son is Karan. How is Karan related to Rita?' Root: Rita. One row down: Amit. Two rows down: Karan. Answer: grandson.
Read relations off the finished tree
Find both people. The relation is the shortest path between them, and the direction of each step names it:
| Path from A to B | B is A's... |
|---|---|
| up, up | grandfather / grandmother |
| up | father / mother |
| same row | brother / sister |
| down | son / daughter |
| up, sideways | uncle / aunt (parent's sibling) |
| sideways, down | nephew / niece (sibling's child) |
| up, sideways, down | cousin (parent's sibling's child) |
Rule: Count the up and down steps first. They fix the generation word. Gender only picks between the two words in one cell.
Every marriage adds a word
Crossing a = line changes the ending of the word:
| Crossing | New word |
|---|---|
| child's spouse | son-in-law / daughter-in-law |
| spouse's parent | father-in-law / mother-in-law |
| sibling's spouse, or spouse's sibling | brother-in-law / sister-in-law |
Watch: A spouse joined by marriage still counts in every 'how many members' question.
Counting males and females
Counting questions are free marks from a finished tree:
- Write M or F beside each name while drawing, only where a word fixes it.
- Count the asked group by ticking boxes. Include the married-in wives and husbands.
- Re-read for 'only', 'each' and 'at least'. They change the count.
Watch: Never count a name whose gender stayed blank. That blank is the trap in most counting questions.
Short chain puzzles
Some puzzles are only two sentences: 'Mohan is Rekha's father. Ramesh is Mohan's father. How is Ramesh related to Rekha?'
Draw the two arrows anyway. Rekha, one arrow up to Mohan, one more up to Ramesh. Two arrows up and male: grandfather. Three arrows would mean great-grandfather. The arrow count picks the family of the word. The gender picks the exact word.
Question types you will see
Each type: how to recognise it, the method step by step, and one question to try.
Chains across generations
Each sentence hangs one person below the last: 'A's son is B, B's daughter is C'.
Draw the chain top-down, one arrow per sentence.
Count arrows between the asked pair: 1 = parent or child, 2 = grand, 3 = great-grand.
Fix the exact word with the gender of the far end.
Generation distance and gender are the only two facts a relation needs, and the chain gives both by counting.
Ramesh is the father of Vinod. Vinod is the father of Anita. How is Ramesh related to Anita?
Show solutionHide solution
Chain: Ramesh, then Vinod, then Anita.
Two arrows from Anita up to Ramesh.
Ramesh is male.
Grandfather
Marriage links: the in-law words
A wife or husband enters the story, and the asked pair are not blood relatives.
Draw the marriage with = on one row.
Name the plain blood relation of the spouse to the other person.
Swap in the in-law word: child's spouse = son/daughter-in-law, spouse's parent = father/mother-in-law.
Every in-law word is exactly one marriage crossing away from a plain blood word.
Sneha is the wife of Rita's son Amit. How is Sneha related to Rita?
Show solutionHide solution
Amit is Rita's son.
Sneha is married to Rita's child.
Spouse of a child = daughter-in-law, since Sneha is female.
Daughter-in-law
Counting males and females in a family
A multi-sentence family plus 'How many male/female members are there?'
Draw the full tree, spouses included.
Write M or F beside each name only where a word fixes it.
Count ticks for the asked group. Leave blank-gender names out.
Ticking while drawing turns a memory test into a five-second count.
Mr. and Mrs. Rao have two sons. The elder son's wife and their two daughters live with them. No one else lives there. How many female members are there?
Show solutionHide solution
Females: Mrs. Rao (1), the elder son's wife (1), the two granddaughters (2).
Males: Mr. Rao and the two sons. Not counted.
1 + 1 + 2.
4 female members
Shuffled sentences, one tree
Four to six sentences in a jumbled order, then 'How is X related to Y?'
Find the person nobody calls a child. That is the root.
Attach children below and marriages beside until every name is placed.
Answer from the shortest path between the asked pair.
Shuffled sentences still describe one tree. Building top-down makes each sentence fill one empty slot.
Anil is the brother of Sunil. Sunil is the father of Mohan. Ritu is the daughter of Kavita. Mohan is the brother of Ritu. How is Kavita related to Anil?
Show solutionHide solution
Mohan and Ritu share parents, so Kavita is their mother and Sunil's wife.
Sunil is Anil's brother.
Wife of Anil's brother.
Sister-in-law
Cousins across two branches
Grandparents have two married children, and the asked pair come from different branches.
Place the shared grandparent at the top with the two siblings below.
Hang each sibling's children on that sibling's branch.
Children of two siblings are cousins, whatever their genders.
Cousins are exactly the children of siblings. No other path connects two branches.
Rahul's mother's brother is Vikas. Vikas's daughter is Neha. How is Neha related to Rahul?
Show solutionHide solution
Vikas is the brother of Rahul's mother.
Neha is Vikas's child.
Child of a parent's sibling.
Cousin
Shortcuts that save time
The root is the person nobody calls a child. Build downward from there. Every statement then clicks into an empty slot.
Rita's son is Amit. Amit's son is Karan. How is Karan related to Rita?
Show solutionHide solution
Nobody is called Rita's child except Amit, and Rita is nobody's child. Root: Rita.
Amit one row down, Karan two rows down.
Two arrows down from Rita.
Grandson
The arrow count picks the family of the word (father, grandfather, great-grandfather). Only then does gender pick inside it. Never guess the word first and draw later.
Mohan is Rekha's father. Ramesh is Mohan's father. How is Ramesh related to Rekha?
Show solutionHide solution
Rekha, one arrow up: Mohan.
One more arrow up: Ramesh.
Two arrows up, male.
Grandfather
Mistakes to avoid
Where most students lose marks on this subtopic.
Reading the sentences in exam order and answering from memory.
Find the root, build top-down, then answer from the tree.
Calling an uncle's or aunt's child a nephew or niece.
That child is a cousin. A nephew is a sibling's child.
Leaving a spouse out of a count of family members.
Everyone named, married-in or born-in, gets one box in the tree.
Counting a person whose gender was never fixed.
Leave blank-gender names out of male and female counts.
Mixing up the two ends of an in-law word.
Child's spouse is son or daughter-in-law. Spouse's parent is father or mother-in-law.
Quick revision
Read this the night before the exam.
Root first: the person nobody calls a child.
Shortest path between the two people = the relation.
Count up and down steps first, gender last.
One marriage crossing adds '-in-law'.
Cousin = child of a parent's sibling, on any side.
Counting: tick genders while drawing. Blanks are never counted.
Spouses count as family members.
Practice: 18 questions
Sets of 10, mixed across the question types above. Every answer has a step-by-step explanation.
Topic test · 10 questions
Suggested time 6 min · wrong answers go to your mistake notebook automatically.