In the word PRESENTMENT, how many distinct pairs of letters have the same number of letters between them in the word as they have between them in the English alphabet?

Introduction / Context:
This question checks your skill in working with positional relationships between letters. You need to compare spacing between letters inside a word with spacing between the same letters in the English alphabet. These problems are common in alphabet test sections of reasoning exams and help develop accurate counting skills and attention to detail.

Given Data / Assumptions:
We are given the word PRESENTMENT.
We must look for pairs of letters in this word that satisfy a specific condition:
The number of letters between them in the word is equal to the number of letters between them in the alphabet.
We assume positions of letters in the alphabet from A as 1 to Z as 26.

Concept / Approach:
For any pair of letters, there are two distances to compare.
Distance in the word is the count of letters between the two positions in that word.
Distance in the alphabet is the count of letters between the two letters in the normal alphabet sequence.
We need pairs where these two distances are equal. The simplest method is systematic scanning: write down indices of each letter in the word and then test possible pairs.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Write the word with index numbers: P(1), R(2), E(3), S(4), E(5), N(6), T(7), M(8), E(9), N(10), T(11). Step 2: For each reasonable pair, compute letters between them in the word as index difference minus one. Step 3: For the pair P and S: positions in the word 1 and 4 give 2 letters between (positions 2 and 3). In the alphabet, P is 16 and S is 19, so there are also 2 letters between them (Q and R). This pair satisfies the condition. Step 4: For the pair R and N: positions in the word 2 and 6 give 3 letters between them (positions 3, 4, and 5). In the alphabet, R is 18 and N is 14, so there are 3 letters between them in order N, O, P, Q, R, and the letters strictly between are O, P, Q which are three letters. Thus this pair also satisfies the condition. Step 5: Check other pairs and confirm that no additional pair matches both counts. Only P S and R N satisfy the rule.

Verification / Alternative check:
A quick verification strategy is to list every candidate pair and write two distances side by side: in word and in alphabet. When this is done carefully, only two pairs show equal distances. Therefore the correct count is two. This matches the pairwise analysis above, which gives confidence in the answer.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Nil: This would mean no such pairs exist, which is incorrect because P S and R N clearly satisfy the condition.
One: This undercounts and ignores at least one valid pair.
Three or more than three: These options overcount and suggest extra pairs that do not actually have matching distances in both contexts.

Common Pitfalls:
Learners often miscount letters between positions in the word by including the end letters or by confusing positions with counts. Another common mistake is to treat the difference in alphabet positions directly as the count of letters between, without subtracting one. To avoid this, remember that if two letters are adjacent in the alphabet, then the number of letters between them is zero.

Final Answer:
The number of such pairs in PRESENTMENT is Two.