Word Order and Alphabetical Gaps

This question requires us to carefully identify specific letters from a given list of words and then count the number of letters that fall between them in the standard English alphabet.

Step 1: Identifying the Target Letters

We need to find two specific letters based on their position within the words and their order (left-to-right or right-to-left).

Step 2: Determining the First Target Letter

First, let's find the 'second letter of the second word from the right'.

• The given words are: PAN, YEW, CRY, URN.
• Arranging the words from right to left gives us: URN, CRY, YEW, PAN.
• The second word from the right is CRY.
• The second letter of the word CRY is R.

So, our first target letter is 'R'.

Step 3: Determining the Second Target Letter

Next, let's find the 'third letter of the second word from the left'.

• The given words are: PAN, YEW, CRY, URN.
• Arranging the words from left to right gives us: PAN, YEW, CRY, URN.
• The second word from the left is YEW.
• The third letter of the word YEW is W.

So, our second target letter is 'W'.

Step 4: Counting Letters in Alphabetical Sequence

Now, we need to count how many letters are there in the English alphabetical order strictly between 'R' and 'W'.

Let's look at the relevant part of the English alphabet:

... P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z ...

The letters that come strictly between 'R' and 'W' are S, T, U, and V.

Counting these letters:

• S
• T
• U
• V

There are 4 letters between 'R' and 'W'.

Alternatively, we can use the positions of the letters in the alphabet:

• 'R' is the 18th letter of the alphabet.
• 'W' is the 23rd letter of the alphabet.
• The number of letters between them is calculated as (Position of W) - (Position of R) - 1.
• Using LaTeX notation: $23 - 18 - 1 = 4$.

Final Count

Therefore, there are 4 letters in the English alphabetical order between the second letter of the second word from the right ('R') and the third letter of the second word from the left ('W').