Q. Consider two Statements and a Question:
Statement 1: The last day of the month is a Wednesday.
Statement 2: The third Saturday of the month was the seventeenth day.
Question: What day is the fourteenth of the given month?
Which one of the following is correct in respect of the Statements and the Question?
(a) Statement 1 alone is sufficient to the answer of the Question
(b) Statement 2 alone is sufficient to answer the Question
(c) Both Statement 1 and Statement 2 are required to answer the Question
(d) Neither Statement 1 alone nor Statement 2 alone is sufficient to answer the Question
Correct Answer: (b) Statement 2 alone is sufficient to answer the Question
Question from UPSC Prelims 2021 CSAT Paper
Explanation :
Option (a) is wrong because Statement 1 alone is not sufficient to answer the question. Statement 1 tells us that the last day of the month is a Wednesday. However, this information alone does not allow us to determine what day the fourteenth of the month falls on.
For example, if the last day of the month is a Wednesday and there are 31 days in that month, then the first day of that month could be a Thursday. In this case, the fourteenth would fall on a Wednesday. However, if there are only 30 days in that month and the last day is still a Wednesday, then the first day of that month would be a Friday and the fourteenth would fall on a Thursday.
Statement 2 tells us that the third Saturday of the month was the seventeenth day. This means that the second Saturday of the month was on the tenth day and the first Saturday of the month was on the third day. Since we know that there are seven days in a week, we can count backwards from Saturday to determine that Friday was on the second day and Thursday was on the first day.
Therefore, we can conclude that Thursday was on the first day of this month and Wednesday was on the fourteenth day of this month.
So, Statement 2 alone is sufficient to answer that Wednesday is on fourteenth of this given month.