The Lake Word
Read the puzzle
Four signs stand on posts at the edge of a calm lake. The water reflects them like a mirror, flipping each word top to bottom. The signs read, in plain capital letters: A, RIVER; B, CHOICE; C, SHADOW; D, MIRROR. Only one word looks exactly the same in its reflection. Which one?
Only one word looks the same in the lake. Which one?
Which letters look the same when flipped top to bottom?
CHOICE
Every letter of CHOICE is the same top and bottom, so the water cannot change it.
How to solve it
A lake reflects things upside down: the top of each letter appears at the bottom. So the test is which letters look the same when flipped top to bottom.
Step one: list the letters that pass. In plain capitals these include B, C, D, E, H, I, K, O and X, because each has matching top and bottom halves.
Step two: check each word letter by letter. RIVER fails at R and V: R has its loop at the top, and V turns into an upside-down V. SHADOW fails at S, A and W. MIRROR fails at M and R. CHOICE is C, H, O, I, C, E, and every one of those letters is the same top and bottom, so the whole word reads unchanged in the water.
The answer is CHOICE, sign B.
The usual wrong answer is MIRROR, chosen because of its meaning rather than its letters. Another slip is testing a left-to-right mirror instead, where letters like A, H, M, O, V and W pass and the result is different.
Takeaway: a water reflection flips top to bottom, so check each letter for a horizontal line of symmetry.
Learn the method: How to Solve Mirror Image Puzzles: Clocks, Letters, Tiles and Light
