In a certain code language, ‘play in the sunshine’ is coded as ‘sh ko zm fq’ and ‘the sunshine is bright’ is coded as ‘ko sh gp rs’. What is code for ‘sunshine’ in that language?

Correct — B. Line the two statements up and compare them.

play in the sunshine = sh ko zm fq
the sunshine is bright = ko sh gp rs

Rule: the words common to both sentences must carry the codes common to both lines.

The common words are the and sunshine. The common codes are sh and ko.

Two words share two codes, and nothing in the data says which code belongs to which word. So sunshine is either sh or ko — option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  either ‘gp’ or ‘sh’ — gp appears in the second code line alone, so it must stand for a word the first sentence does not contain — is or bright. It cannot code sunshine.
• (c)
  ko — ko is one of the two possible codes, but nothing narrows the pair down to it. Naming ko by itself claims information the two sentences never supply.
• (d)
  zm — zm appears in the first code line alone, so it stands for play or in — a word missing from the second sentence, which sunshine is not.

In word-code questions with no positional clue, overlap is the only usable evidence. A word appearing in two sentences must be coded by a code appearing in both code lines.

Here the overlap is two words wide, so the deduction stops one step short of a unique answer. The pair of shared words maps onto the pair of shared codes, and no third sentence exists to separate them.

SSC builds that ambiguity in deliberately and then offers either … or among the options. Reading the ambiguity as a flaw, and picking whichever single code looks likelier, is the error the item is set to catch.

Key facts

• play in the sunshine is coded sh ko zm fq.
• the sunshine is bright is coded ko sh gp rs.
• The sentences share the words the and sunshine, and the code lines share sh and ko.
• With a two-to-two overlap and no third sentence, the code for sunshine cannot be pinned to one word.

Common traps

• Picking ko because it opens the second code line while sunshine sits second in that sentence.
• Treating a two-word overlap as though it settled a single code.
• Rejecting an either … or option on the belief that a code item must resolve to one code.

No directly related past PYQ was found.