CODING-DECODING

The method of transmitting a message from one form to another and vice-versa is known as coding-decoding.
In these types of questions, generally a word or a group of words are represented in certain form by various
logics, we have to decode that logic and have to apply the same logic to answer the questions.
Below are the various types of questions related to coding-decoding-

Letter Coding

In these type of questions, letters of a word are replaced by certain other letters as per some specific rule or
logic. The logic could be rearrangement of the letters as per their position in the word or as per the alphabetic
order of the English alphabet. It may also be applied in the form of constant addition/subtraction in the
position of alphabets or may be addition of the position and reverse position of the letter to get a final code.
So, before moving to the examples related to letter coding, one must be aware of the following points, which
are really helpful in solving letter coding questions.

Alphabetical Position
We know that there are 26 letters in the English alphabet.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
What we need to consider here is their respective position starting from the 1st letter as follows-

Letter A B C D E F G H I J K L M
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Letter N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Position 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

EJOTY
To memorise the position of the letters, there is a method known as EJOTY, with the help of which one may
easily find the position of any letter without much effort. Although, it is always suggested and recommended
that one should learn the respective positions of the letters by heart.

Letter E J O T Y
↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
Position 5 10 15 20 25

Following are the steps that will help you to memorise the position of the respective letters-
Step 1 – Memorise the position of the above five letters.
Step 2 – Try to locate the nearest letter among the above-mentioned letters to find the respective position of
the letter required.

For example, let’s say one has to find the position of the letter R. We know that alphabet goes in order as …
R, S, T, … and so on. Now the position of the letter T is 20th as per our EJOTY, and R is two places ahead of
it. So, the respective position of the letter R should be 20 – 2 = 18th position.

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Likewise, using this method, one may orally connect the respective positions of any letter with the above-
mentioned letters of EJOTY.
One may also use it other way around, for example, let’s find which letter is positioned at 8 th place. We know
at 5th place, E is positioned and at 10th place, J is positioned, and alphabet goes in order as … E, F, G, H, I, J,
... and so on. So, from either side, H is placed at the 8th position.

Reverse Order
Apart from EJOTY, another important aspect of English alphabet is when it is written in reverse order, or we
can say considering alphabetical positions from the right side. Generally, we count the positions from the left
side of the alphabet i.e. A, B, C, D, …, X, Y, Z. But what if we have to consider the positions of the letters
from the right side i.e., Z, Y, X, …, C, B, A. In such cases, the method we discussed earlier will be applicable
but with a bit of modification.

Consider the letter A, the position from the left side is 1st and position from the right side is 26th. For letter B,
the position from the left side is 2nd and the position from the right side is 25th. Likewise, for letter Z, the
position from the left side is 26th and the position from the right side is 1st. One may observe that the position
from left side and the position from right side always sum up to 27.

Left Side
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Position

Letter A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Right Side
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Position

Sum 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 27

Hence, we may deduce to find the reverse position (or the position from the right side) of any letter can we
find by subtracting the normal position (or the position from the left side) from 27.
For any letter, Normal position + Reverse position = 27
For example, the normal position of letter I is 9th, so the reverse position of I would be 27 – 9 = 18th.
And this logic can be extended for the all the letters of the English alphabet, from left side to right side and
right side to left side.

Continuation
We already aware of the fact that there are 26 letters in all positioned from 1 to 26 from the left side. What if
question demands to move to the 27th position or the 35th position. In such cases, we continue the series again
with A at 27th position, B at 28th position, C at 29th position and so on.
Not just that, even if we have to find the position to the left of 1 st position i.e. A, then we consider Z at 0th
(zeroth) position, Y at -1 position, X at -2 position and so on. Here negative position implies letter to the left
of A.
For example, the letter at the 50th position will be 50 – 26 = 24th positioned letter which is X.
Hence like this the continuation of the letters as well as their respective position goes on.

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Vowels & Consonants
Sometimes the question is represented in such a way that it is not simply concerned with the position of
letters of English alphabet but also requires your knowledge. For example, what will come next in the series
A1, E5, I9, O15, …
Now here, we know that the numbers mentioned are the respective position of the letter from the left side of
the English alphabet. But if we observe the gap between the letters are not symmetric and does not form any
specific pattern. So, other way of looking at this series is list of 5 vowels i.e. A, E, I, O and U.
Hence, the next term in the series will be U21.

The remaining 21 letters B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y, Z are known as

consonants.

Solved Examples:

Ex 1: In a certain code language, TRANSFER is written as RTNAFSRE, then how ELEPHANT could be
coded in the same language?

Sol. In this example, the consecutive letters of word are interchanged taken two at a time.
TR becomes RT, AN becomes NA, SF becomes FS and ER becomes RE.
Applying the same logic, ELEPHANT can be coded as LEPEAHTN.

Ex 2: If the word PREPARE is coded as PEAE, then REASONING would be coded as

Sol. The logic involved here is every even letter has been removed and odd letters have been retained.
Applying the same logic, REASONING would be coded as RAOIG.

Ex 3: In certain code language, TEACHERS is coded as VCCAJCTQ, then CHILDREN would be coded as

Sol. The logic applied here is letters at odd places is moved two places up and letters at even places moved
two places down.
T (20) E (5) A (1) C (3) H (8) E (5) R (18) S (19)
+2 –2 +2 –2 +2 –2 +2 –2
V (22) C (3) C (3) A (1) J (10) C (3) T (20) Q (17)
Similarly, applying the same logic
C (3) H (8) I (9) L (12) D (4) R (18) E (5) N (14)
+2 –2 +2 –2 +2 –2 +2 –2
E (5) F (6) K (11) J (10) F (6) P (16) G (7) L (12)
CHILDREN would be coded as EFKJFPGL.

Ex 4: In a certain code SERVICES is written as TFSWHBDR. How is EXAMPLES written in that code?

Sol. In the above example, logic applied is that first half of the letters are moved one place forward and
second half of the letters are moved one place backward.
S (19) E (5) R (18) V (22) I (9) C (3) E (5) S (19)
+1 +1 +1 +1 –1 –1 –1 –1
T (20) F (6) S (19) W (23) H (8) B (2) D (4) R (18)
Applying the same logic,

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 E (5) X (24) A (1) M (13) P (16) L (12) E (5) S (19)
+1 +1 +1 +1 –1 –1 –1 –1
F(6) Y (25) B (2) N (14) O (15) K (11) D (4) R (18)
EXAMPLES written in that code will be FYBNOKDR

Number Coding

In these type of questions, letters of a word are replaced with certain numbers according to some specific rule
or logic. The logic could be their position in the word or as per the alphabetic order. It may also be applied in
the form of number of letters, or square the position of the letters, or the sum of the positions of the letters and
so on. Let us see few examples related to the same.

Solved Examples

Ex 1: If the word COW is coded as 031523, what will be the code of the word HORSE?

Sol. We know that alphabetically, C is at 3rd place, O at 15th and W at 23rd, so code for the HORSE would
be 0815181905.

Ex 2: If EXAM is coded as 43, then RESULT would be coded as

Sol. E = 5, X = 24, A = 1 and M = 13. Sum = 5 + 24 + 1 + 13 = 43. Similarly, RESULT will be coded as
18 + 5 + 19 + 21 + 12 + 20 = 95.

Ex 3: In certain language APPLE is coded as 4, ORANGE is coded as 6, then what will be the code for
BANANA?

Sol. Here the number of unique letters has been considered to code the respective word.
Number of unique letters in the word APPLE is 4 and in that ORANGE is 6. Since, the word
BANANA has 3 unique letters B, A and N, so the code would be 3.

Ex 4: If RAM = 9, SUDHA = 25, RAMESH = ?

Sol. The logic applied here the square of the number of letters of the given word.
RAM has 3 letters and 32 = 9, SUDHA has 5 letters and 52 = 25. Applying the same logic, there are 6
letters in the word RAMESH, so, the code for the word will be 62 = 36.

Ex 5: If A = 3, B = 6, C = 11, D = 18, E = 27 and so on. What will be the code for the word LAPTOP?

Sol. The logic applied here is square of the respective position of the alphabet and the add 2 in it.
A = 11 + 2 = 3, B = 22 + 2 = 6, C = 32 + 2, D = 42 + 2, E = 52 + 2 and so on
Applying the same logic, L = 122 + 2 = 146, A = 12 + 2 = 3, P = 162 + 2 = 258, T = 202 + 2 = 402, O =
152 + 2 = 227 and P = 162 + 2 = 258. So, code for LAPTOP would be 146 3 258 402 227 258.

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Ex 6: If in a certain language if ENTRY is coded as 12345 and STEADY is coded as 931785, then state
which the correct code for below word is TENANT?

Sol. Comparing, code for letter E = 1, N = 2, T = 3, R = 4, Y = 5, S = 9, A = 7, D = 8

So, the code for the letter TENANT would be 312723.

Symbol Coding

In these types of questions, some words or letters are represented in some symbolic language in a jumbled
way. One has to find the correct order or the pattern involved to solve the questions. Some of the examples are
as follows-

Solved Examples

Ex 1: In a certain code language, RAIN is written as 8$% 6 and MORE is written as 7#8@, then REMAIN
written in that code language will be?

Sol. Comparing, code for R = 8, A = $, I = %, N = 6, M = 7, O = #, E = @

So, code for REMAIN would be 8@7$%6

Ex 2: In a certain code language, ‘read from paper’ means 289, ‘tea from field’ means 276, ‘wall paper’
means 85, then the code for ‘read’ in that language would be?

Sol. Comparing, ‘from’ is common and number 2 is common among 1st and 2nd sentence. So, ‘from’
represents number 2 in that language. Likewise, paper is common in 1st and 3rd statement and so does
the number 8. So, paper represents number 8 in that language. Hence, remaining word ‘read’
represents the number 9 in that coded language.

Ex 3: In a certain code language, ‘si po re’ means ‘book is thick’, ‘ti na re’ means ‘bag is heavy’, ‘ka si’
means ‘interesting book’ and ‘de ti’ means ‘that bag’. What should stand for ‘that is interesting’ in
that code language?

Sol. Comparing, 1st and 2nd statements, common code is ‘re’ which means ‘is’. Comparing, 1st and 3rd
statements, common code is ‘si’ which means ‘book’. So, code for ‘interesting’ is ‘ka’. Likewise,
comparing, 2nd and 4th statements, common code is ‘ti’ which means ‘bag’. So, code for ‘that’ is ‘de’.
Hence, code for ‘that is interesting’ in that language will be ‘de re ka’.

Substitution Coding

In these types of questions, some words or objects are assigned with substituted names. Using those names,
one has to answer a simple question. Some of the examples are as follows-

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Solved Examples

Ex 1: If eye is called hand, hand is called mouth, mouth is called ear, ear is called nose and nose is called
tongue, one would hear with?
Sol. One would hear with ear and here ear is called nose. So, the required answer is nose.

Ex 2: If blue means green, green means white, white means yellow, yellow means black, black means red,
red means brown, then what is the colour of milk?

Sol. Colour of the milk is white and here green means white. So, the required answer is green.

Sequential Coding

In these types of questions, some letters or numbers are assigned with some symbols or characters along with
some given conditions or constrains to be followed. Using those constrains, one has to answer the given
questions.

Ex: The following table shows the different symbols used for different alphabets.

A D I K E P M O R X L
@ & * ! > ? + ^ % # $

Use the rules mentioned below, answer the following question.

Rule (1)- If any word begins with a consonant and ends with a vowel, then interchange their codes.
Rule (2)- If any word begins and ends with a vowel, code both the letters with the code for the last
vowel. Find the codes for PRIME and APPLE using the above rules.

Sol. As per the table, P = ?, R = %, I = *, M = + and E = >. But since the word starts with consonant and
ends with vowel. So, the codes must interchange. Hence, the code for PRIME would be ‘>%*+?’
Also, A = @, P = ?, P = ?, L = $, E = >. But since the word starts and ends with vowels. So, codes for
the last vowel will be used for both the letters. Hence, the code for APPLE would be ‘>??$>’.