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GATE 2026 EE GA Q.4: solution and answer

GATE 2026 · EEGA Q.4 · 1 mark · MCQ

‘If Anish had scored hundred runs in today’s match, he would have been made the captain of his team. He would have then become the youngest captain in his team’s history. Unfortunately, he got out without scoring any runs. Hence, there won’t be any change in the captaincy for now.’

Based on the paragraph above, which one of the following statements is true?

  1. (A)

    Anish made hundred runs but was denied captaincy.

  2. (B)

    Anish was the captain of his team before the game today.

  3. (C)

    The current captain is older than Anish.

  4. (D)

    Anish is the youngest player in his team.

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Answer and solution

ANSWER

(C) The current captain is older than Anish.

Official answer: CSource: Official answer key, GATE 2026 EE (IIT Guwahati)

  1. Read the first sentence as a counterfactual. “If Anish had scored hundred runs …, he would have been made the captain” is a past unreal conditional: he did not score a hundred, so he was not made captain. It also tells us he was not the captain before the match, because nobody is “made” captain of a team he already captains.

  2. The passage then says it outright: he “got out without scoring any runs”. So “there won’t be any change in the captaincy for now”, which means whoever is captain now stays captain.

  3. Option (A) is false. He scored zero runs, not a hundred, and captaincy was never refused to someone who met the condition.

  4. Option (B) is false. He could only be “made the captain” if he was not already captain. With “no change in the captaincy”, the captain is still someone other than Anish.

  5. Option (C) follows from the text. Had Anish been made captain, he “would have then become the youngest captain in his team’s history”, so he is younger than every captain the team has ever had. The current captain is one of those captains, so the current captain is older than Anish.

  6. Option (D) cannot be inferred. The passage compares Anish only with the team’s captains. It says nothing about players who were never captain, and any of them could be younger than Anish.

  7. The only statement the paragraph supports is (C).

KEY IDEA

Read both the counterfactual and the superlative strictly. “Would have been made captain” means Anish is not captain now. “Would have become the youngest captain in the team’s history” means he is younger than every captain so far, and that includes the current one. The comparison covers captains only, not every player.

WATCH OUT FOR

Choosing (D): stretching “youngest captain” into “youngest player”. The passage compares Anish only with the team’s captains, so it tells us nothing about the ages of players who never captained. Some readers also pick (B) because they miss that someone can only be “made” captain if he is not captain already.

From the GATE 2026 EE paper. Every question of this paper · Download the full paper · All 18 Reading questions, with notes

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