The position of how many letters will remain unchanged if all the letters in the word MOLTEN are arranged in English alphabetical order?

Correct — C. Write the word with numbered slots, write the sorted word underneath, and read down the columns.

MOLTEN is M O L T E N in slots 1 to 6.

Sorted into English alphabetical order the same letters give E L M N O T.

Column by column: M/E, O/L, L/M, T/N, E/O, N/T.

No column holds the same letter twice, so the number of positions that stay put is none — option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Two — Two would need two columns to agree. Running all six — M/E, O/L, L/M, T/N, E/O, N/T — produces no agreement at all, so two is too many.
• (b)
  Three — Three is the largest count offered and the furthest from what the comparison gives. E L M N O T shares no slot with M O L T E N, not one, let alone three.
• (d)
  One — One is the answer when a single letter happens to land back on its own slot. Here even L, which moves only from slot 3 to slot 2, fails to stay put.

This is a clerical item rather than a reasoning one, and it is lost to hurry, not difficulty.

Write the word once with numbered slots, write the sorted word directly beneath it, and read down.

A letter counts only if it holds the same numbered slot in both rows. Appearing in both rows is not enough, and every letter appears in both rows.

MOLTEN has six distinct letters, so the sorted row is a straight rearrangement with no repeats to track. The whole job is six column checks.

Key facts

• MOLTEN sorted into alphabetical order is ELMNOT.
• A letter counts as unchanged only when its slot number is identical before and after sorting.
• Six distinct letters mean six slot comparisons and no repeated letters to track.

Common traps

• Sorting in your head and mis-ordering L, M and N.
• Counting a letter as unchanged because it appears in both rows rather than in the same slot.
• Rejecting None because it feels like a trick option.

No directly related past PYQ was found.