SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 26 September 2024, Shift 3 · General Intelligence and Reasoning · Question 6 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 standing at a vertical MN reverses the order of the characters and reverses each character sideways. Nothing is turned upside down.

The string is YrP74ea5 and MN is the vertical line to its right, so the reflection reads 5, a, e, 4, 7, P, r, Y from left to right, with every glyph flipped left-for-right.

The check that settles it: flip a candidate back left-to-right and it must return the original. Do that to option (a) and YrP74ea5 comes back, character for character.

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Flip option (b) back left-to-right and YrP74ea5 returns upside down. Option (b) is the correct mirror image turned over — the strip rotated 180°, which is not what a mirror at MN does.
(c)
Flip option (c) back and YrP74ea5 does not return: the P, the 4 and the a come back the wrong way up. A single mirror cannot reverse some characters sideways and turn others over.
(d)
Flip option (d) back and only Y, r, P and 5 return correctly. The 7, the 4, the e and the a come back wrong, and the e and a have also swapped places.

Concept

A mirror at a vertical line does two things at once, and candidates usually do one. First the reading order reverses: the character nearest the mirror stays nearest it, so the string is read back to front.

Second, each character is itself reversed left-for-right. A 5 gets its flag on the other side, a P has its bowl on the left. Heights do not change — a capital stays a capital and nothing stands on its head.

The test that never fails is reflecting twice. A true mirror image, mirrored again, is the original. Anything that does not come back exactly was never the mirror image.

Very few characters survive a vertical mirror unchanged, and in this string only the Y does. That is why every option looks plausible at a glance: the differences sit inside single glyphs, not in the shape of the strip.

Key facts

A vertical mirror reverses reading order and reverses each character sideways.
A vertical mirror never turns a character upside down, which is what a water image does.
Mirroring a correct answer a second time returns the original string exactly.
In YrP74ea5 the Y is the character a left-right flip leaves unchanged.

Study next

Water images of letter and digit strings, where top and bottom swapMirror images where the mirror is placed below the figure rather than beside itCharacters unchanged by a vertical mirror, such as A, H, I, M, O, T, U, V, W, X and Y

Common traps

Reversing the order of the characters but printing each one the normal way round
Picking the strip that is the mirror image turned upside down, a 180° rotation rather than a reflection at MN
Judging by the overall outline of the strip rather than by the individual glyphs

SSC prints a short mixed string of capitals, small letters and digits beside a vertical MN and asks for the mirror image. The same frame appears at 09 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.10 and at 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, Reasoning Q.2.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.