SSC Exam Reasoning Study Material: A conceptual guide for Coding-Decoding

SSC is well known for the recruitment of Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ posts under the Ministries/Departments in The Government of India. SSC organizes various examinations like Combined Graduate Level examination, Combine Higher Secondary Level, Stenographer and for SI/DP/CAPF, etc., throughout the year having almost the same Exam Pattern. The Exam paper is comprised of basically 4 subjects.

        a. General Intelligence & Reasoning

        b. English language & Comprehension

        c. Quantitative Aptitude

        d. General knowledge

For more detail, click the link given below.

SSC SI, CAPF & ASI Exam 2015: Exam Pattern

SSC Combined Higher Secondary Level (10+2) Exam 2014: Exam Pattern

SSC JHT & Hindi Pradhyapak and Sr. / Jr. Translators Exam 2014: Exam Scheme & Syllabus

SSC Stenographer 2016: Take a look of Exam Pattern, Syllabus and Selection Procedure

So, Jagranjosh.com has introduced a brief plan for revising topics at the time of examination. In this article, Coding-Decoding  which sometimes appear more difficult to understand in terms of  Human Relationship.

Coding Decoding

Coding Decoding test is to judge a candidate’s ability to decipher the code language. Coding is the process of converting a word into another language by using letters and numbers while decoding is to convert the coded value back into the normal language. In each question of this topic a word and coded form of the word will be given to the student. A student will required to decode the logic behind this coding and then apply the logic to another given word to find the answer in form of a code.

English alphabets and their corresponding number values helps the candidate to increase the performance in this area. The position of the letter in the English Alphabet is considered to be the value of the alphabet in questions on letter series. Also, when we are counting from A to Z, we again start with A, i.e. we treat the letters as being cyclic in nature. While attempting the letter series one should know the value of each of the alphabet as

Alphabets in natural series are:

The Word EJOTY is very helpful in finding the position of the alphabet as

For example, if we want to find the position of the alphabet ‘S’, then as we know that ‘T’ is 20, so ‘S’ is 20 - 1 = 19. Also, we can find the position of an alphabet from the end by subtracting its value from 27. For example, the position of D from the end is 27 – 4 = 23.

The pattern below is very useful to find many types of question in Alphabet Series when we write the last 13 alphabets in front of the first 13 alphabets of the English:

The questions on coding and decoding are basically of three types as given below.

I. LETTER TO LETTER

1. In a certain code ‘SHIMLA’ is written as ‘RGHLKZ, how will PATNA be coded then?

a) OZTMZ    b) OZSMZ    c) QBUMB    d) OZTZM

Sol: Each letter is coded as the letter previous to it, i.e. S = R, H = G, I = H, M = L, L = K, A = Z. PATNA will become OZSMZ. Hence the answer is (b).

2. If CEJQ is coded as XVQJ, then BDIP will be coded as :

a) WURQ    b) YWRK    c) WUPI    d) YWPI

Sol: The first 13 letters of the alphabet are coded by the 13 letters of the alphabet in reverse, i.e.
    = A B C D  E F G H I  J  K  L M (first 13 letters)
    = Z Y X W V U  T S R Q P O N (13 letters in reverse)
    It is obvious from the above coding scheme that :
    B = Y, D = W, I = R and K = P or P = K
    Therefore, B D I P will be coded as Y W R K.
    So, the answer is (b).

II. LETTER TO NUMBER

3. If LODES is coded as 46321, how will you code the word DOES?

a) 1234        b) 4321         c) 3621         d) 3261

Sol: Here, you will observe that all the letters of DOES are included in the letters of LODES, for which you have the code D = 3, O = 6, E = 2, S = 1. Therefore DOES = 3621. So, the answer is (d).

4. DAZE is written as 41265 in a certain code. How will BOY be written in the same code?

a) 41425    b) 5120    c) 21525    d) 359

Sol: In this question the position of each alphabet is given like D is 4 , Z is 26 etc. So the Code of BOY will be 21525 as B is 2, O is 15 and Y is 25. So, the answer is (c)

III. MISCALLANEOUS TYPES

5. In a certain code ‘415’ means ‘milk is hot’; ‘18’ means ‘hot soup’; and ‘895’ means ‘soup is tasty’. What number will indicate the word ‘tasty’?

a) 9    b) 8    c) 5    d) 4

Sol: The code for ‘hot’ is 1.So, the code of ‘soup’ is 8. Now the code of ‘is’ is 5. Hence we can say that the code of ‘tasty’ is 9. So, the answer is (a)

6. If ‘black’ is called ‘pink’, ‘pink’ is called ‘blue’, ’blue’ is called ‘brown’, ‘brown’ is called ‘orange’, ‘orange’ is called ‘violet’, ‘ violet’ is called ‘red’ and ‘red’ is called ‘black’, what is the colour of blood ?

a) black    b) brown    c) pink    d) orange

Sol: As the colour of blood is red and red is called black in the given coded language. So the colour of blood is black in the given coded language. So the answer is (a)