Practice30Create account

In a certain village each person belongs to one of two kinds: a truth-teller, who never says anything false, or a liar, who never says anything true. Chetna says, "Dinesh is a truth-teller." Dinesh says, "Chetna and I are not of the same kind." What are the two of them?

Competition practiceReasoning & Mental Ability
  • ABoth of them are truth-tellers.
  • BChetna is a truth-teller and Dinesh is a liar.
  • CChetna is a liar and Dinesh is a truth-teller.
  • DBoth of them are liars.

Step-by-Step Solution

Suppose Chetna were a truth-teller. Then Dinesh really is a truth-teller, so his own words are true and the two are of different kinds — but we have just made them both truth-tellers, a contradiction. So Chetna is a liar. Her claim about Dinesh is therefore false, so Dinesh is a liar too. Check that this holds together: Dinesh's words, 'we are not of the same kind', are false, and indeed they are of the same kind. The traps: 'both truth-tellers' is the case just shown to break down; 'Chetna truthful, Dinesh a liar' makes Chetna's own statement false while she is supposed to be truthful; 'Chetna a liar, Dinesh truthful' makes Chetna's statement true while she is supposed to be lying.
Answer: D) Both of them are liars.

Master this topic in 30 minutes a day.

Don't just memorise the answer — build a daily practice habit.

Practice 5 Similar Questions Free →

All Reasoning & Mental Ability practice questions

More Reasoning & Mental Ability practice

Five students — Neel, Osha, Prem, Riya and Sahil — sit in a row of five chairs numbered…In the addition below, each of the letters A and B stands for one digit, and the sum as…In a square of nine numbers, every row, every column and both diagonals add up to the…A town's streets run in a grid. A cyclist starts at one junction and must reach a…A wooden cube is to be sawn into 27 identical small cubes. Between one cut and the next…