Directions: Select a figure from the four alternatives, which when placed in…
2024
Directions: Select a figure from the four alternatives, which when placed in the blank space of figure would complete the pattern.
Attempted by 1 students.
Show answer & explanation
Concept: In a figure that is built from mirror-symmetric halves (here, the circle's design is identical on the left and right of the vertical diameter, just flipped), any missing quadrant must reproduce the reflection of the quadrant that sits opposite it across that mirror line -- you are matching a reflection, not inventing a new pattern.
Application:
Locate the axis of symmetry: the vertical diameter splits the circle into a left half and a right half. The top-left wedge and the top-right wedge (both already drawn) are mirror images of each other across this line, which confirms the whole design repeats by left-right reflection.
The missing wedge is the bottom-right quadrant. Its mirror partner across the same vertical diameter is the bottom-left quadrant, which is already drawn in the figure.
Trace the bottom-left wedge's internal lines: it carries two horizontal dividers (one about a third of the way down, a second one close to the base) plus two diagonals -- one running from the shared top corner into the curved outer edge, and one running from that corner to a point on the shared straight edge.
Flip that wedge left-to-right. A horizontal line stays horizontal under a left-right flip, so both dividers reappear in the same two positions; the two diagonals swap direction, running as mirror images of the originals.
Match this flipped wedge -- both horizontal dividers plus the two mirrored diagonals, with no line added or dropped -- against the four alternatives.
Cross-check: The same reflection relationship already holds between the top-left and top-right wedges visible in the figure, so the rule is confirmed before it is even applied to the missing piece. Any alternative that changes the number of horizontal dividers, or adds a line the bottom-left wedge does not have, breaks this established left-right symmetry and can be ruled out.
The alternative that reproduces both horizontal dividers (upper and lower) of the bottom-left wedge, together with its two diagonals running in the mirrored directions, is the one that completes the pattern -- exactly matching the flip of the quadrant already drawn.