How many packed lunches does this table show for Hazel in the Tuesday column? Choose the number, then tap the cell you took it from.
Run along the Hazel row until you reach the Tuesday column: the two meet at 16. Reading down instead of across lands on 4, which is a real cell of this table and the wrong one, and that swap is the slip worth naming out loud every time you use a table. Keep a finger on the row and a finger on the column and bring them together, rather than trusting your eye to stay level.
Step 1. Read it. Choose the number the table shows.
Step 2. Show where. Now tap the cell you read it from.
What to say if they get stuck
Find the bar, row or slice the question names before you read anything. Getting the label right matters as much as the reading.
The scale does not always count up in single steps. Work out what a single line is worth before you read anything off it.
Keep your finger level as you slide from the board across to the scale. Drifting up or down by a line is the commonest slip there is.
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 read a table cell, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Where read a table cell sits in the 11+
The 11+ does not test these skills in isolation, and practising one in the wrong order wastes the practice. These are the skills the curriculum map connects this one to.
How read a table cell differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises one other skill, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: find one value at a named row and column, and it stops where excludes calculation across cells.
Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.
Find one value at a named row and column. It is one of 55 named maths skills in the 11+, in the data strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
There is a specific mistake recorded against this skill: swaps the named row and column. 11+ papers are written to offer exactly that answer, so a child can be confident and still lose the mark. When it keeps happening, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Run your finger down the Donation column to Handbags, then straight across to the January crates column.
Once it is secure, the skill map opens compare table values. A comparison requires accurate cell retrieval.
The skill map draws the line here: Excludes calculation across cells. A question past that line is testing a different named maths skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The data strand holds 9 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to read a table cell are calculate an arithmetic mean, compare bar-chart values and compare line-graph change. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
Use Table Reader, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to read a table cell, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
One wrong answer is a slip, the same wrong answer every time is a habit
A free diagnostic looks at which mistakes repeat across all four subjects, not just whether read a table cell was right on the day.
