SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 24 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 2 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 10 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Select the correct mirror image of the given figure when the mirror is placed at MN.

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Rule: a mirror at a vertical line MN reverses the reading order and laterally inverts every glyph.

The stem reads R p 7 3 d h 6, with MN standing to its right.

Reverse the order first: 6 h d 3 7 p R.

Then turn each character: the 6 and the h face the other way, d becomes b, 3 becomes Ɛ, the 7 reverses, p becomes q and R becomes Я.

Option (a) is exactly that string. Flip option (a) back about the same line and it reads R p 7 3 d h 6 again.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Option (b) carries the block d h 6 across untouched — same left-to-right order, same facing. The image needs those three as 6, h, d with every glyph laterally inverted.
(c)
Option (c) has every glyph standing on its head — the effect of a mirror lying along a horizontal line, not the vertical MN this question draws.
(d)
Option (d) fails at two glyphs: it prints d where the mirror of p is q, and it turns the 7 upside down rather than left to right, which is the wrong flip.

Concept

A mirror on a vertical line does two things at once, and SSC builds its wrong options by doing one of them and skipping the other.

It reverses the reading order, so the last character of the stem becomes the first of the image. And it laterally inverts each glyph, so d reads as b, p as q, R as Я and 3 as Ɛ.

Characters symmetrical about a vertical axis — A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X, Y, 0, 8 — come through unchanged, which is why a stem built from d, p, b and q is the hard version of this item.

The stem is a single line of type, so you can settle this without redrawing anything. Cover the options, write the mirror out yourself, then look.

Key facts

A mirror at a vertical line MN reverses the order of the characters and laterally inverts each one.
A mirror at a horizontal line leaves the order alone and turns each character upside down, which is the water image.
d and b are mirror partners, as are p and q, so a stem carrying them is where the wrong options hide.

Study next

Water images, where the mirror lies along a horizontal lineMirror images of figures that mix letters with arrows or shadingThe list of capitals and digits left unchanged by a vertical mirror

Common traps

Reversing the order and then forgetting to invert the individual characters.
Picking the water image because it also looks unfamiliar at a glance.
Judging by the first character alone, since option (a) and option (d) open identically.

The same instruction, with the same MN line, is set again at Reasoning Q.3 of this paper on a five-letter string, and at 9 Sep 2024, 12:30, Reasoning Q.2 and Q.3.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.