From the word "LAPAROSCOPY", without changing the order of letters and using each letter at most once for any single word, how many independent meaningful English words can be formed (for example, "LAP" or "COPY")?

Introduction / Context:
This question asks you to find independent meaningful words hidden inside a longer word, without rearranging the letters. The word given is "LAPAROSCOPY", which is itself a medical term. You must scan this string from left to right and identify smaller English words that appear in order as contiguous letter groups. This type of puzzle checks both observation and vocabulary.

Given Data / Assumptions:
• The base word is "LAPAROSCOPY".
• We are allowed to use each letter only once for any single word and cannot change the relative order of letters; that is, we look for natural segments within the word.
• We count independent meaningful English words, typically of at least three letters, that a general exam taker is expected to recognise.

Concept / Approach:
The strategy is to slide a window of length three or more across the word and check whether each substring is a valid English word. Because the string is fairly long, you do not need to test every possible substring. Instead, start by spotting very familiar short words like "LAP" or "COP" and then see if any longer complete words such as "COPY" also appear. Each such segment must appear exactly as it is written in the base word and must be contiguous.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Write the word clearly: L A P A R O S C O P Y.Step 2: Look from the beginning. The first three letters "LAP" form the common English word "LAP". So "LAP" is one independent word.Step 3: Move further. Around the middle we notice the letters C O P at positions that read as "COP", which is another valid English word meaning a police officer. So "COP" is the second independent word.Step 4: Observe the last four letters. They read as "COPY", which is also a very common English word meaning duplicate.Step 5: Thus we have identified three independent meaningful words inside "LAPAROSCOPY": "LAP", "COP" and "COPY".Step 6: We briefly check if there are any other obvious short words of length three such as "PAR" or "ROS" that are equally strong, but the three identified words are the clearest and most standard examples.

Verification / Alternative check:
You can verify by marking these segments on the original word. "LAP" uses the letters in positions 1 to 3, "COP" uses letters C O P that appear consecutively towards the end, and "COPY" uses C O P Y as the last four letters. None of these segments overlap in a way that violates the rule for any single word, and all of them are widely known English words. Hence a count of three is justified.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
• 1: This would assume that only one meaningful word exists inside the string, which is clearly incorrect because even a quick glance reveals "LAP" and "COPY".
• 2: Counting only two words ignores one of the three clear segments and therefore underestimates the total.
• 4 or 5: To reach four or five, we would need to include less obvious or debatable segments that are not standard everyday words, which is not intended for this reasoning question.

Common Pitfalls:
Students sometimes allow themselves to rearrange letters, creating anagrams like "POLY" or "SOAP", which is not allowed here because we must preserve order. Another frequent mistake is to count the same set of letters both as a shorter and longer word in a way that double counts the same segment, but the question only asks for how many different meaningful words exist, not for a disjoint partition of letters. Focusing on contiguous, clearly independent dictionary words avoids these errors.

Final Answer:
The number of independent meaningful words that can be formed from the word "LAPAROSCOPY" without changing the letter order is 3 (namely "LAP", "COP" and "COPY").