In a certain code, following sentences have been coded as mentioned below:…
2024
In a certain code, following sentences have been coded as mentioned below:
“Arjun is walking to school” is coded as
‘NA’, ‘SI’, ‘AG’, ‘DR’, ‘VI’
“Krishna is speaking to Arjun” is coded as
‘KA’, ‘TK’, ‘DR’, ‘SI’, ‘NA’
“School is within walking distance of Krishna” is coded as
‘VI’, ‘SI’, ‘NIH’, ‘AG’, ‘LE’, ‘KA’, ‘OP’.
What is the code for ‘walking’?
Answer: C. AG — Concept: In sentence-based (language-translation) coding, a word keeps the same code in every sentence in which it occurs. Two consequences follow. A word…
- A.
TK
- B.
NI
- C.
AG
- D.
SI
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept: In sentence-based (language-translation) coding, a word keeps the same code in every sentence in which it occurs. Two consequences follow. A word that occurs in several of the coded sentences has its code present in every one of the matching code sets, so intersecting those sets narrows the code down. And a code listed for only one sentence can stand only for a word that occurs only in that sentence.
Application: The data given in the question is:
Sentence | Code set given |
|---|---|
Arjun is walking to school | NA, SI, AG, DR, VI |
Krishna is speaking to Arjun | KA, TK, DR, SI, NA |
School is within walking distance of Krishna | VI, SI, NIH, AG, LE, KA, OP |
‘is’ is the only word that occurs in all three sentences, and SI is the only code that occurs in all three code sets. So SI is the code for ‘is’.
‘walking’ occurs in “Arjun is walking to school” and in “School is within walking distance of Krishna”, so its code lies in the intersection of those two sets, which is {VI, SI, AG}. Removing SI, already fixed as ‘is’, leaves {VI, AG}.
‘school’ also occurs in exactly those same two sentences, so the pair {VI, AG} carries ‘walking’ and ‘school’ between them.
Among the four codes offered here, TK is listed with “Krishna is speaking to Arjun” alone, NI is not one of the given codes at all, and SI is already fixed as ‘is’, so none of the three can be the code for ‘walking’. Exactly one of the four offered codes is the answer, and AG is the only one of them lying inside the pair {VI, AG}. Hence ‘walking’ is coded AG, and VI is left as the code for ‘school’.
Cross-check: the same intersection method applied to the other repeated words is consistent with this result:
‘Krishna’ occurs in “Krishna is speaking to Arjun” and “School is within walking distance of Krishna”. Those two code sets share KA and SI, and SI is already fixed as ‘is’, so KA is the code for ‘Krishna’.
TK is listed with “Krishna is speaking to Arjun” alone, and ‘speaking’ is the only word that occurs in that sentence alone, so TK is the code for ‘speaking’.
With AG taken by ‘walking’, VI is left as the code for ‘school’, and the remaining shared pair NA and DR covers ‘Arjun’ and ‘to’.
Result: the code for ‘walking’ is AG.
Note: the three coded sentences on their own place ‘walking’ and ‘school’ inside the same pair {VI, AG} and never separate the two, because both words occur in exactly the first and the third sentence. What settles the answer here is that AG is the only member of that pair offered as a code to choose from, and this agrees with the official answer key of the examination from which this question is taken.