A paper is folded and cut as shown below. How will it appear when unfolded?

Correct — B. Fold one brings the top half down onto the bottom half. Fold two brings the right half across onto the left. What is left is the bottom-left quarter of the sheet, four layers thick.

Two cuts sit in that quarter: an E near its top-left corner and a reversed E near its bottom-right corner.

Rule: every cut reappears in all four layers, mirrored across each fold it crosses.

Opening the vertical fold mirrors both cuts left to right and fills the bottom half of the sheet. Opening the horizontal fold copies that whole bottom half upward.

The result is eight shapes: two E's at the left edge and two reversed E's at the right edge, one row above and one below mid-height, with a reversed-E and E pair at the top centre and the same pair at the bottom centre. That is option (b).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Four shapes cannot come from two cuts through four layers. Option (a) also puts a reversed E on the left and a plain E on the right, the mirror image of the folded quarter's own arrangement.
• (c)
  A horizontal fold cannot reverse an E, which is symmetric top to bottom. Option (c) stacks reversed E's above plain E's as though it did, and shows four shapes where eight are needed.
• (d)
  Six shapes is a count that two cuts through four layers cannot produce, and option (d) mixes reversed and plain E's inside the same half of the sheet.

A cut-and-unfold question is a counting problem before it is a picture problem.

Each fold doubles the layers: one fold gives two layers, two folds give four. A cut made through the folded stack opens into as many copies as there are layers, so two cuts through four layers give eight shapes.

Then place them. Mirror each copy across the fold line it crosses — a vertical fold reverses left to right, a horizontal fold flips top to bottom. A drawn capital E is unchanged by a top-to-bottom flip, so only the vertical fold visibly reverses it here.

Key facts

• Two folds make four layers, so one cut opens into four shapes.
• Two cuts through this quarter open into eight shapes on the unfolded sheet.
• A vertical fold reverses a shape left to right, while a horizontal fold flips it top to bottom.
• A drawn capital E looks the same after a top-to-bottom flip, so only the vertical fold reverses it here.

Common traps

• Opening one fold only and settling for four shapes
• Reversing the E across the horizontal fold as though the letter were not symmetric
• Placing the copies by eye instead of keeping each one's distance from the fold line

No directly related past PYQ was found.