Directions for the following 3 (three) items: Rotated positions of a single solid are shown below. The various faces of the solid are marked with different symbols like dots, cross and line. Answer the three items that follow the given figures.
What is the symbol on the face opposite to that containing a single dot?
Answer & explanation
Answer: (b) Three dots
The line is on top in views (I)–(III), so the four dot-faces all touch it and form the ring around the solid, and the cross, the sixth face, is opposite the line. Around the ring the order is one, two, three, four dots, so one dot is opposite three dots.
- Views (I)–(III) all have the line on top and between them show one, two, three and four dots on the sides: all four dot-faces touch the line.
- The only face left, the cross, must be opposite the line.
- Side faces in order: (I) one then two; (II) two then three; (III) three then four — the ring runs 1, 2, 3, 4.
- In a ring of four faces, alternate faces are opposite: one dot is opposite three dots (and two dots opposite four dots).
- Check with (IV): cross on top, two dots in front, one dot on the right — one and two dots are adjacent, as the ring requires.
Remember · A face seen beside four different faces is opposite the sixth; the other four then form a ring in which alternate faces are opposite.
Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper II (2018, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 1 Oct 2026 (how we verify). ·