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Coding-Decoding
Coding means to hide the meaning of any message and decoding means to understand the actual
meaning the that message.
In questions based on coding-decoding, a word (basic word) is coded in a particular way and the
candidates are asked to code other word in the same way. The coding and decoding tests are set
up to judge the candidate’s ability to decipher the rule that has been followed to code a particular
word/message and break the code to decipher the message. To solve the questions based on
coding-decoding, first of all it is necessary to remember the positions of all the letters in English
alphabetical order, both in forward and backward order.
Types of Coding-Decoding
Following are the categories/types of coding-decoding, which are generally asked in various
competitive examinations.
Type 1:- Letter Coding
In this type of coding, we deal with questions, in which the letters of a word are replaced by
certain other letters according to a specific pattern/rule to form a code. You are required to
detect the coding pattern/rule and answer the question(s) that asked, based on that coding
pattern/rule.
Example 1: If GOODNESS is codes as HNPCODTR, then how GREATNESS can be written in that
code?
A. HQZSMFRT
B. HQFZUFRTM
C. HQFZUODTR
D. HQFZUMFRT
E. None of these
Sol. D.
Clearly, the letters in the word GOODNESS are moved one step forward and one step backward,
alternately to obtain the letters of the code.
As,
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Type 2:- Number/Symbol Coding
In this type of coding, either numerical code values are assigned to a word or alphabetical code
letters are assigned to the numbers. In some questions various symbols are assigned to the letters
of a word.
Example 2. If ‘WORK’ is coded as ‘4 – 12 – 9 – 16’, then how will you code ‘WOMAN’?
A. 4 – 12 – 14 – 26 – 13
B. 4 – 26 – 14 – 13 – 12
C. 23 – 12 – 26 – 14 – 13
D. 23 – 15 – 13 – 1 – 14
E. None of these
Sol. A.
We have, Then,
Here, each letter is coded by the numerical value obtained by subtracting its ‘position value’ in
English alphabetical order, from 27, e.g. letters W,
O, M, A, N are at 23rd, 15th, 13th, 1st and 14th position in alphabetical order. So, their codes are
(27–23), (27–15), (27–13), (27–1), (27–14), i.e. 4, 12, 14, 26, 13, respectively i.e. their backward
order position.
Type 3:- Deciphering Message Word Coding/Numeral Coding
In this type of coding, to analyse such codes, any two messages bearing a common word/numeral
are picked up. The common code word/numeral will represent a particular word/code.
Proceeding similarly by picking up all possible combinations of two, the entire message can be
decoded and the codes for every individual word/numeral can be found.
Example 3. In a certain code language, ‘it pit sit’ means ‘I am boy’, it nit sit’ means ‘I am girl’,
which of the following means ‘girl’?
A. it
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B. pit
C. sit
D. nit
E. None of these
Sol. D.
We have,
Here, ‘it’ and ‘sit’ are common in both the messages and ‘I’ and ‘am’ are common in both codes.
Hence, code for girl will be ‘nit’.
Type 4:- Substitution Coding
In this type of coding, some particular words are assigned with certain substituted and on the
basis of substituted word the code is derived.
Example 4. If ‘white’ is called ‘blue’, ‘blue’ is called ‘red’, ‘red’ is called ‘yellow’, ‘yellow’ is called
‘green’, ‘green’ is called ‘black’, ‘black’ is called ‘violet’ and ‘violet’ is called ‘orange’, then what
would be the colour of human blood?
A. Red
B. Green
C. Yellow
D. Violet
E. Orange
Sol. C.
We know that, the colour of the human blood is ‘red’ but here ‘red’ is called ‘yellow’. So, the
colour of human blood will be ‘yellow’.