📖Definition
In these questions, you'll be given an example of how a word is formed by taking letters from two other words. You're then given another pair of words and must use the same rule to take letters from these to form a third word.
✏️Example
rob ( bag ) gap
pit ( ___ ) bug
Knowledge Required
Here, it's not so much knowledge as an ability to spot a pattern and then apply it. The answer, as they say, is in the question. You just need to work out how to find it!
✅How To Answer
Method 1
The first thing to do is write the given words like so:
Diagram
Now, identify which letters in the top word (W1) and the bottom word (W2) are used to form the middle word (Answer Word).
Diagram
Above, the letters are linked with arrows. Now link them like so.
Diagram
Do you see how that works? We've written a number above any letter that's come from W1 and that number tells which letter in W1 it is. So, the b is the 3rd letter in W1 so a 3 goes above the b in the answer word.
In the same way, we've written a number below any letter that's come from W2 and that number tells which letter in W2 it is. The a is the 2nd letter in W2 so a 2 goes below the a in the answer word, and the g is the 1st letter in W2 so a 1 goes below the g in the answer word.
Now you need to apply that same pattern to the words you've been given.
Diagram
So, Letter 3 of W1 (t) becomes the first letter of our answer word. Letter 2 of W2 (u) becomes the second letter and Letter 1 of W2 (b) becomes the third letter.
Diagram
And the word we've formed is tub.
Now that was pretty simple. You'll need a slightly longer method to solve the harder questions but just follow it step by step and you'll find the answer.
✏️Example
warp ( park ) pack
lend ( ___ ) rice
Method 2
As before, write numbers above/below the letters in the formed word depending on which position they were in W1 and W2.
Now, this is a bit tricky. The formed word in the middle contains a p and an a which appear in both the given words.
Let's look at the p. That could be Letter 4 from W1 (so write a 4 above the p) OR it could be Letter 1 from W2 (so write a 1 below the p).
Do the same thing with the a.
The r and k are straightforward as they each only appear once in the outer letters.
So, the diagram should look something like this.
Diagram
Although we're not certain where some of the letters came from, we'll apply this pattern to the words we've been given and then try to work out the answer.
Use the numbers above the answer word to fill in letters from W1 and the numbers below to fill in letters from W2.
Diagram
You'll see two of the boxes contain two letters. That's because there were numbers above and below and we don't yet know which to use.
Now, look at all the possible words that can be formed from: d / r, e / i, n, e.
dene rene dine rine
dene rene dine rine
Of these, only dine is a word so that's our answer.
💡Multiple Choice Tip
In the last example above, once you've to this stage...
Diagram
...you know that those are the only possible letters that can be used in the answer so you can eliminate any answers that don't contain a combination of those letters.