Study the following information carefully and answer the given question. In a…
2025
Study the following information carefully and answer the given question.
In a certain code language:
'down cyber market report' is coded as 'bx fe fm xp'
'cyber watch order market' is coded as 'fm xp xe kx'
'down market major watch' is coded as 'xi xe fm fe'
'smog report market today' is coded as 'dx bx lx fm'
Which of the following is the code for 'market'?
- A.
bx
- B.
xe
- C.
fe
- D.
fm
Attempted by 9 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
In sentence-based coding-decoding, when a specific word appears in more than one of the given coded sentences, its code must be common to the code-groups of every sentence in which that word appears. Comparing the code-groups across all the sentences that share a word isolates its unique code.
Applying this to the four given sentences and their code-groups:
Sentence | Code-group |
|---|---|
'down cyber market report' | bx, fe, fm, xp |
'cyber watch order market' | fm, xp, xe, kx |
'down market major watch' | xi, xe, fm, fe |
'smog report market today' | dx, bx, lx, fm |
'market' is the only word that appears in all four sentences.
Its code must therefore be the one code common to all four code-groups.
Checking each code across the four groups: 'bx' occurs only in groups 1 and 4; 'xe' occurs only in groups 2 and 3; 'fe' occurs only in groups 1 and 3; but 'fm' occurs in every one of the four groups (1, 2, 3, and 4).
Hence 'market' is coded as 'fm'.
This also holds up consistently for the other words: comparing sentences 1 and 2 (common words 'cyber' and 'market') leaves 'xp' for 'cyber'; comparing sentences 1 and 4 (common words 'report' and 'market') leaves 'bx' for 'report'; comparing sentences 1 and 3 (common words 'down' and 'market') leaves 'fe' for 'down'; and comparing sentences 2 and 3 (common words 'watch' and 'market') leaves 'xe' for 'watch', with 'kx' left for 'order' and 'xi' left for 'major'. No sentence produces a contradiction under this assignment.