The sequence of folding a piece of paper and the manner in which the folded paper has been cut is shown in the following figures. How would this paper look when unfolded?

Correct — C. The stem shows a square sheet folded twice: the top half is folded down onto the bottom half, then the left half is folded across onto the right half. What is left is a quarter-size square at the bottom right, and a single star is cut in it.

That star is not symmetric. A small two-line tail runs out of its upper-left arm, pointing left — towards both creases.

Rule: undo the folds in reverse order, and each one you open mirrors everything across that crease.

Open the left-to-right fold: a second star appears in the bottom-left quarter as a left-right mirror, tail now on its upper right.

Open the top-to-bottom fold: both stars copy into the top half upside down, tails now below the star instead of above.

So all four tails end up pointing in towards the middle of the sheet — and option (c) is the picture that shows exactly that.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  In option (a) the top-left star is still upright with its tail above, a straight copy of the folded quarter. Opening the top-to-bottom fold has to turn both upper stars over.
• (b)
  Option (b) shows all four stars upright, tails above. Only the left-right mirroring has been applied and the horizontal fold has been ignored altogether.
• (d)
  Option (d) turns over the top-left star but leaves the top-right one upright with its tail above, so the top row is not the mirror of the bottom row.

Unfolding is folding run backwards. Take one crease at a time, in the reverse of the order they were made, and reflect everything you already have across it.

Two folds turn one cut into two, then into four. Because a mirror swaps left and right, it is the asymmetric detail — here the star's little tail — that separates the four options.

A cut that touches a crease joins its mirror image into one larger shape. This star sits clear of both creases, so the four copies stay separate.

Key facts

• Two folds mean one cut opens out into four shapes.
• Opening a fold reflects the shapes across that crease, reversing left and right.
• A cut that does not touch a crease stays as separate copies instead of joining up.

Common traps

• Copying the cut into all four quarters without flipping any of them
• Undoing the folds in the order they were made instead of in reverse
• Ignoring the star's small tail, which is the only feature telling the options apart

No directly related past PYQ was found.