Rohtak 2019: mirror image of TARAIN1014A (mirror on the right).

Solution: order reversed, every character flipped: A4101NIARAT with mirrored 4, N, R.

Water image of FLIGHT.

Solution: same order, each letter upside down; I and H look unchanged, F, L, G, T do not.

A clock seen in a mirror shows 8:20. Actual time?

Solution: 11:60 − 8:20 = 3:40.

What are the common traps in Mirror / water image questions?

Half the job: order reversed but letters not flipped, or the reverse. Wrong mirror: the water image offered for a mirror question and vice versa. Clocks: both hands are reflected; the two times always add to 12:00.

Start here · the first lesson of Mirror / water image

Mirror / water image

Non-verbal Reasoning · for IPMAT Indore, IPMAT Rohtak and JIPMAT

The idea

A mirror placed beside a figure swaps left and right; a water surface below it swaps top and bottom. Every option in these questions is one of four things: the true image, the other reflection, the figure turned through 180 degrees (both reflections), or a near copy with one detail wrong. Rohtak 2019 asked the mirror image of a letter-digit group (Q8); JIPMAT 2025 asked a mirror image (Q18) and a water image (Q22) of figures, and JIPMAT 2026 did the same (Q5, Q6).

Textbook vs exam method

Textbook method

Decide which reflection is asked: mirror (left-right) or water (top-bottom).
Letter groups: for a mirror, write the group from right to left and flip each character left-right; for water, keep the order and turn each character upside down.
Figures: move every part to the other side of the mirror line, keeping its distance from the line; the parts' own shapes are flipped too.
Clocks in a mirror: subtract the time seen from 11:60.

Exam method

Find the most asymmetric character or part (R, F, G, 4, 7, an arrowhead, a flag, a shaded half).
Ask where it must be and which way it must face; strike out every option that disagrees.
If two options remain, compare one more part (usually the order of the characters or the side of a shaded half).