If 'relftaga' means carefree, 'otaga' means careful and 'fertaga' means careless, which of the following could mean 'aftercare'? A. zentaga B. tagafer C. tagazen D. relffer

GATE 2016 · General Aptitude · Code Words · medium

Answer: C. tagazen

1. Establish the common mapping: taga = care: relftaga / otaga / fertaga all contain 'taga'. carefree / careful / careless all contain 'care'. Therefore taga = care.
2. Identify remaining fragment codes: relftaga - taga = relf => relf = free (from carefree). fertaga - taga = fer => fer = less (from careless). otaga - taga = o => o = ful (from careful).
3. Determine order: care comes before the suffix in English: relftaga: 'relf' is a prefix in the code. In English 'free' is a suffix (after 'care'). So the code reverses the order: English 'care + free' = coded 'free_code + care_code' = 'relf + taga' = 'relftaga'. This means in the code, word parts appear in reverse order relative to English.
4. Code 'aftercare': In English: 'aftercare' = 'after' + 'care'. Following the pattern where English word parts are reversed in code: coded('aftercare') = coded('care') + coded('after') = 'taga' + (unknown code for 'after'). From option C 'tagazen': taga + zen = care + after, meaning zen = after. This fits the reversal pattern perfectly. Option C: tagazen = taga(care) + zen(after) = aftercare.