In this letter coding analogy, TRACK is coded as MECTV by reversing and shifting letters. Using the same coding rule, what is the code for POND?

Introduction / Context:
This question is a letter coding analogy where a word is transformed into another through a two step process. The example TRACK : MECTV shows how the letters of the original word are rearranged and shifted in the alphabet to form the code. You must identify this pattern and then apply it to the word POND to determine the correct coded form among the options. This tests both pattern recognition and careful letter by letter transformation.

Given Data / Assumptions:

The given mapping is TRACK to MECTV.
We work with the English alphabet A to Z as positions 1 to 26.
The word POND must be coded according to exactly the same steps as TRACK.
Options are EOPQ, FPQR, GOQQ and HPPR.
We assume a consistent algorithm involving reversing the order and shifting positions, rather than random substitution.

Concept / Approach:
If we look at TRACK and MECTV directly, the letter correspondence is not obvious. A useful trick in such problems is to test whether the original word has been reversed before shifting letters. Reverse TRACK to get KCART. Now compare KCART with MECTV letter by letter. K becomes M, C becomes E, A becomes C, R becomes T and T becomes V. Each of these letters is exactly two steps ahead in the alphabet. This reveals the rule: reverse the original word, then shift every letter two positions forward. We will now apply this two step process to POND.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Write the original example word: TRACK. Step 2: Reverse it to get KCART. Step 3: Shift each letter of KCART two places forward in the alphabet. K (11) to M (13), C (3) to E (5), A (1) to C (3), R (18) to T (20) and T (20) to V (22). The result is MECTV, which matches the given code. Step 4: Now take the target word POND. Step 5: Reverse POND to get DNOP. Step 6: Shift each letter of DNOP two positions forward. D (4) moves to F (6), N (14) moves to P (16), O (15) moves to Q (17) and P (16) moves to R (18). Step 7: Combine these new letters to form FPQR.

Verification / Alternative check:
To verify, we can quickly reverse the process. Starting from FPQR, shift each letter back by two positions: F back to D, P back to N, Q back to O and R back to P, forming DNOP. Reversing DNOP again gives POND, the original word. This confirms that the two step code of reversing and shifting is symmetrical and correctly applied. Comparing FPQR with the available options shows that it appears exactly as option B and that no other option can be obtained from POND using the discovered pattern.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
EOPQ, GOQQ and HPPR do not result from reversing POND and then uniformly adding two to every letter. For example, reversing POND gives DNOP, not any ordering that could lead to EOPQ by a +2 shift. Likewise, attempting to map DNOP to GOQQ or HPPR creates inconsistent shifts for different positions. Any answer that fails to maintain both the reversal and the consistent +2 shift across all letters is incompatible with the rule found in TRACK : MECTV.

Common Pitfalls:
A frequent error is to look only for simple shifts without considering that the word might also be reversed. If you try to map TRACK directly to MECTV, the pattern seems irregular, which can be confusing. Recognising that many exam codes involve reversing the word as a first step can make such problems much easier. Another pitfall is to apply the correct shift but forget to reverse first, which would produce a different incorrect word. Always replicate each step observed in the example pair in the same order for the new word.

Final Answer:
Using the rule “reverse the word, then shift each letter two steps forward”, POND is coded as FPQR, so FPQR is the correct answer.