I tweaked your answer format a little to simplify things. See comment below. 

#! perl -sw
use strict;
local $\=$/;

#! Added leading and removed trailing /'s for consistancy
my %answers = ( 
    '/WRB1/JJ1/VBZ1/NP1/IN1/NP2'    => '/NP1/VBZ1(so)/JJ1 : /NP1/IN1/N
+P2/VBZ1(really)/JJ1',
    '/WP/NP1/VB1/VBN1/PP1'          => '/PP1/PP2/NP1(are)/VB1',
);

my $question = 'How/WRB1 hot/JJ1 is/VBZ1 the core/NP1 of/IN1 the earth
+/NP2 ?/';

my @keys = $question =~ m!(/[A-Z0-9]+)!g; # Parse markers

# Update: Fixed problem not capturing all words between tags
#my @values = $question =~ m!(\w+)(?=/)!g; # Parse values
my @values = $question =~ m!(.*?)(?:/[A-Z0-9]+\s+)!g;

my %lookup; @lookup{@keys} = @values;     # Build lookup

my $key = join'',@keys;
my $answer = $answers{$key};

$answer =~ s!\s*$_\s*! $lookup{$_} !g for keys %lookup;
$answer =~ s!\s+:\s+! and the !g;
#$answer = 'The' . $answer; # Update: No longer needed.
print $answer;

[download]

Output: (revised after changes) 

C:\test>210085
the core is (so) hot and the core of the earth is (really) hot
C:\test>

[download]
Nah! Your thinking of Simon Templar, originally played by Roger Moore and later by Ian Ogilvy

In reply to Re: Match key and return value in some order by BrowserUk
in thread Match key and return value in some order by Anonymous Monk

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