Non-verbal Reasoning · Rotation & Reflection
Rotation Dial
Turn the dial until the blue shape matches the target.
Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. What you may do with it, in full.
Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.
Why this works
Rotation turns a shape but never flips it. If no amount of turning makes it match, you are looking at a reflection - a mirror image.
Helping a child through Rotation Dial
It runs in 2 steps
- 1. Match it. Turn the dial until the blue shape matches the target.
- 2. The impostor. Same game… or is it? Match the shape - or call out the trick.
Hints, least revealing first
- Grab the orange ring and drag it around.
- Look at the longest point of the shape - where does it point on the target?
- In step 2, try flipping it in your head. Rotating never flips a shape!
When they finish it: “Locked in!”
What usually goes wrong here
- Moves one marked part but does not transform the complete figure.
This is the wrong answer 11+ papers are built to offer, so it is worth watching for directly: a child who does this will look confident and still lose the mark. If it keeps happening on rotate a visual figure, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
3 11+ skills this exercise practises
Each of these has its own page, with a worked example on it. 2 of the 3 name the mistake that skill attracts.
- Rotate a shapeIdentify the result of one stated rotation.
- Reflect a visual figureTrack all marked parts through one reflection.
- Rotate a visual figureTrack all marked parts through one rotation.
You can reuse this. Here is exactly how far that goes
Tutors, teachers and editors keep asking, so this is the answer in writing rather than by email. You do not need to ask permission, and you do not need to tell us.
- Embed it
- Put the exercise inside your own page with the code above. It stays playable, and it keeps working when we improve the engine behind it.
- Print it
- Print the page, or print the exercise off the screen, and hand out the copies. No limit on how many.
- Use it in class
- One child or a full set, in a school, in a tutoring session, in a homework club, or at the kitchen table.
- Put it in something you charge for
- A paid course, a paid tutoring session, a paid workbook, a members-only site. You owe us no fee and you do not need to ask.
- Reuse it in your own writing
- Quote it, rewrite it, translate it, cut it up, or build something different on top of it. Treat the wording, the worked examples and the question ideas as yours to work with.
The one thing we ask is a link back to the page you took it from, so a reader can find the live, playable version and the rest of the 11+ skills next to it. That is a request, not a condition: nothing above depends on it.
This covers the interactive exercises and the teaching notes on these 11+ pages. It does not cover the Trace Learn name or logo, and it does not let you present your version as something Trace Learn published.
Embed this exercise
Paste this into your own page and the exercise runs there, playable, for your readers or your students. It is 900 pixels tall by default and as wide as the column you put it in; change the height if your layout wants a different one.
The embedded copy has no header, no footer and no sign-up prompt. It records nothing about the child using it, on your page just as on ours.
One exercise is a start, not a plan
A free diagnostic across all four subjects shows which non-verbal reasoning skills to practise next, and in what order.