Understanding the Letter Arrangement Problem

This type of question tests your ability to analyze the position of letters within a word and how those positions change when the letters are rearranged, specifically in alphabetical order in this case. We need to find how many letters in the word 'AMPLIFY' remain in their original position after sorting.

Analyzing the Word AMPLIFY

The given word is AMPLIFY. Let's list the letters and their initial positions:

• Position 1: A
• Position 2: M
• Position 3: P
• Position 4: L
• Position 5: I
• Position 6: F
• Position 7: Y

There are 7 letters in the word AMPLIFY.

Arranging Letters in Alphabetical Order

Now, let's arrange the letters of AMPLIFY in alphabetical order. The letters are A, M, P, L, I, F, Y. Arranging them alphabetically gives us:

A, F, I, L, M, P, Y

Let's see which letter is at each position after this alphabetical arrangement:

• Position 1: A
• Position 2: F
• Position 3: I
• Position 4: L
• Position 5: M
• Position 6: P
• Position 7: Y

Comparing Original and Alphabetical Positions

To find out how many letters' positions remain unchanged, we compare the letter at each position in the original word AMPLIFY with the letter at the same position after arranging them alphabetically.

We can use a table to make this comparison clear:

Looking at the table, we can see which positions have the same letter in both the original and the alphabetically arranged word.

• Position 1: 'A' is in the 1st position in both cases.
• Position 4: 'L' is in the 4th position in both cases.
• Position 7: 'Y' is in the 7th position in both cases.

The letters at positions 2, 3, 5, and 6 changed from their original letter.

Counting Unchanged Letter Positions

Based on the comparison, the letters at the following positions remained unchanged:

• Position 1 (A)
• Position 4 (L)
• Position 7 (Y)

There are three such positions where the letter remained the same.

Revision Table: Letter Arrangement

Additional Information: Positional Puzzles

Positional puzzles involving letters or words are common in logical reasoning and verbal ability sections of aptitude tests. They often require careful observation and systematic comparison.

Here are some variations of such puzzles:

• Rearranging letters of a word in reverse alphabetical order.
• Swapping positions of specific letters (e.g., the first and last, the second and second-to-last).
• Finding how many pairs of letters have the same number of letters between them in the word as in the English alphabet.
• Identifying letters that are a certain distance from the beginning or end of the word after rearrangement.

Solving these puzzles accurately depends on clearly writing down the steps and comparing the original and final arrangements position by position.