NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 4 End of Unit 4 — Who Am I?
Book page 130 Updated on2026-09-05
Q1.
I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What number am I?
Answer
Answer: SEVEN.
Seven is an odd number. Take away the letter S from S-E-V-E-N and what is left is EVEN.
Where the trick lies: the riddle makes you think about arithmetic — dividing by two — when the puzzle is actually about the spelling of the word. Whenever a riddle says “take away a letter”, stop calculating and start looking at the letters.
Q2.
You go at green, but stop at red. Who am I?
Answer
Answer: A traffic light (traffic signal).
Green means go and red means stop — that is the rule of every road crossing in the world. The amber or yellow light in between warns you to get ready.
Did you know? The same three colours are used on railway signals and even on the pedestrian ‘walk’ signs, because red is the colour our eyes pick out fastest from a distance, especially in fog.
Q3.
Three letters in my name; Backwards-forwards it’s the same. I am a body part. Who am I?
Answer
Answer: EYE.
It has three letters, and read backwards it is still E-Y-E. It is, of course, a part of the body.
The word for such a word: a word that reads the same forwards and backwards is a palindrome. Other palindromes you know: madam, level, radar, noon, malayalam, nitin, 121, 1881.
Careful:ear and arm also have three letters and are body parts — but neither reads the same backwards. The palindrome clue is what settles the answer.
Q4.
I follow you all the time, but you can’t touch me or catch me. What am I?
Answer
Answer: Your shadow.
A shadow goes wherever you go in the sunlight, but it is only a patch of ground where your body has blocked the light. There is nothing there to hold, so it can never be touched or caught.
A connection with this unit: look again at the picture on page 115. The four children playing in the evening light throw long shadows across the grass — and those long shadows are what tell you the sun is low and that the game, like the one in ‘The Winner’, is nearly over.
Now make your own: a good ‘Who am I?’ riddle names two ordinary facts about a thing but never the thing itself, and ends with a small contradiction — follows you but cannot be caught. Try one for a clock, a shoe, a mirror or the wind.