In a certain code language, ‘can we play’ is coded as ‘ae tc nx’ and ‘play in school’ is coded as ‘tc rm ef’. How is ‘play’ coded in that language?

Correct — D. Line the two statements up and read off what they have in common.

Rule: the word both sentences share carries the code both code groups share.

'can we play' = ae, tc, nx
'play in school' = tc, rm, ef

play is the word appearing in both sentences and tc the code appearing in both groups, so play = tc — option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  ae — ae sits in the first code group alone, so it stands for 'can' or 'we' — neither of which is in the second sentence.
• (b)
  rm — rm sits in the second group alone, so it stands for 'in' or 'school'.
• (c)
  ef — ef is confined to the second group in the same way as rm, so it too codes 'in' or 'school'.

The three-word sentences are chosen so that exactly one word is common. That gives you a one-to-one match without decoding anything else.

Intersect the English words, intersect the codes, and pair the survivors. If both intersections have one member each, the pairing is forced and no other information in the question matters.

The remaining four codes stay ambiguous — ae is 'can' or 'we', and nothing in the question resolves which. That is by design.

Key facts

• The two sentences share exactly one word, play.
• The two code groups share exactly one code, tc.
• The other four codes cannot be pinned to single words from these two statements alone.

Common traps

• Pairing the first code with the first word.
• Trying to fix all five codes when the question asks about one.
• Assuming a code that appears once must belong to the shared word.

No directly related past PYQ was found.