Exactly one of these readings comes out different. Which one?
This engine’s own main skill is What Stays the Same When a Shape Moves. It practises rotate a shape alongside it.
The programme is “Slide 4 right”, then “Slide 2 right”, then “Flip in the line x = 4”. Every move on that list picks the outline up and puts it down without changing its size or shape, so the lengths of the sides, the angles at the corners and the area inside are all exactly what they were. What a rigid motion does change is WHERE things are, and here that is the coordinates of corner A. There is one more thing a flip changes and a slide or a turn never does: the letters ran anticlockwise round the outline and now run clockwise. The exam-safe habit is to sort every reading into "about the shape itself" or "about where the shape is": the first kind always survives, the second kind is the only place an answer can hide.
Step 1. Watch it move. Play the cards and watch the readings.
Step 2. The odd one out. Which single reading came out different?
What to say if they get stuck
Tap a reading and it is drawn twice: once on the faint outline where the shape started, once on the solid one where it is now. Scrub slowly and watch whether the two marks stay the same.
A slide, a turn and a flip all pick the outline up without stretching or squashing it, so every length, every angle and the area come through untouched.
A flip is the only one of the three that reverses the outline, and this programme has one of them, so the letters end up reading round the other way.
The move has already happened. Play each card on the outline and find the one that lands on the ghost exactly.
This engine’s own main skill is Identifying Transformations. It practises rotate a shape alongside it.
The move was “Turn 90° anticlockwise about (-4, 2)”. The card beside it, “Turn 90° clockwise about (4, 3)”, is the same kind of move, so calling it a turn settles nothing: what has to be read is which way round it turns, and which point it turns about. It comes down to one corner. A starts at (-1, -3) and the ghost has it at (1, 5); the other card sends it to (-2, 8) instead. That card does get one corner exactly right, which is why one corner is never enough on its own. That is the exam-safe method: settle what is different about the two cards, then pin it down with a single corner.
Step 1. Look at it. Drag the track to play a card and watch where the outline goes. Scrub back to try another.
Step 2. Name the move. Which card was played? Pick the one that lands the outline exactly on the ghost.
What to say if they get stuck
Both cards play the same kind of move, so deciding it was a turn does not choose between them. What is different is which way round it turns, and which point it turns about.
Follow one corner. A starts at (-1, -3) and the ghost has it at (1, 5), so the right card has to send it exactly there.
Check a second corner before you lock in. The wrong card here lands one corner exactly where the ghost has it and every other corner somewhere else.
Mirrors a figure instead of preserving orientation through a turn.
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 shape, the fix is the misunderstanding rather than more questions.
Where rotate a shape 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.
A geometric rotation can transfer to provider-style marked-figure reasoning.
How rotate a shape differs from the skills beside it
The same exercise practises several skills, and telling them apart is often the difficulty rather than the exercise itself. On this page the skill is: identify the result of one stated rotation, and it stops where centre, direction, and turn are fixed.
Identify the translation, rotation, or reflection relating a shape and its image. Identifies the transformation from supplied figures or coordinates. It does not execute the transformation.
Use the fact that translation, rotation, and reflection preserve lengths and angles. Excludes calculating an unknown measure from unrelated angle or length rules.
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.
Identify the result of one stated rotation. It is one of 55 named maths skills in the 11+, in the geometry strand, and this page carries 3 interactive exercises that practise it.
There is a specific mistake recorded against this skill: mirrors a figure instead of preserving orientation through a turn. 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.
No. To rotate a shape is to identify the result of one stated rotation. To reflect a shape is to identify the result of one reflection in a stated mirror line. Rotation and reflection are commonly confounded. Telling the two apart is often the real difficulty in the question.
Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Follow one corner of the shape as it turns a half-turn around the centre.
The skill map draws the line here: Centre, direction, and turn are fixed. 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 skill map connects it to rotate a visual figure. A geometric rotation can transfer to provider-style marked-figure reasoning. That skill has its own page here.
Use Spot the Changed Reading, Rotation Dial and Which Card Was Played?, embedded on this page. They are the exercises the skill map attaches to rotate a shape, they run in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. Each also has its own link, so you can send one to a child without sending them anywhere else first.
Is it rotate a shape they find hard, or telling it apart from reflect a shape?
Those two look like one weakness on a practice paper and need completely different practice. A free diagnostic tells them apart across all four subjects.
