In a certain code language, ‘talk to me’ is coded as ‘aq yt bl’ and ‘do not talk’ is coded as ‘yt me wc’. What is the code for ‘talk’ in that language?

Correct — C. Set the two statements side by side and look for the overlap.

Rule: the word both sentences share must carry the code both code groups share.

'talk to me' = aq, yt, bl
'do not talk' = yt, me, wc

talk is the single word in both sentences, and yt the single code appearing in both groups. So talk = yt — option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  aq — aq appears in the first code group and nowhere else, so it stands for 'to' or 'me' — words the second sentence does not use.
• (b)
  wc — wc appears only in the second group, so it belongs to 'do' or 'not'. It cannot code a word that also sits in the first sentence.
• (d)
  bl — bl is confined to the first group exactly as aq is, so it too codes 'to' or 'me', never the shared word.

Substitution coding gives you sentences, not word-by-word pairings — the codes are deliberately printed in a scrambled order so position tells you nothing.

What survives the scrambling is set membership. Intersect the two sets of English words, intersect the two sets of code words, and if each intersection has one member the pairing is forced.

That is the whole method. You never need to decode the other words, and you should not try.

Key facts

• The two sentences share exactly one word, talk.
• The two code groups share exactly one code, yt.
• Code words are printed in a scrambled order, so the first code does not belong to the first word.

Common traps

• Matching codes to words by position — the order is scrambled on purpose.
• Reading the English word 'me' in statement one as the code word 'me' in statement two.
• Trying to decode every word when the question asks for one.

No directly related past PYQ was found.