What does a child have to do to translate a coordinate in the 11+?

Determine a point image or translation vector on a coordinate grid. It is one of 55 named maths skills in the 11+, in the geometry strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.

What is the trap in an 11+ translate a coordinate question?

Moving left or down makes a coordinate smaller, not bigger. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.

What is not part of translate a coordinate in the 11+?

The skill map draws the line here: One point and one translation only. 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.

Which other 11+ skills should we practise alongside translate a coordinate?

The geometry strand holds 15 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to translate a coordinate are classify an angle, compose coordinate transformations and identify a cube net. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.

How can my child practise translate a coordinate for free?

Use The Transformation Deck, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to translate a coordinate, 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.

Maths · Geometry

Translate a coordinate

Determine a point image or translation vector on a coordinate grid.

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.

Practise it now

Drag the track to play the cards and watch the outline move. Then say where corner C finished.

It covers most of this skill rather than all of it.

Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.

A worked example

One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.

Sliding a point across the grid

Point C is translated 1 right and 1 down. What are the coordinates of the image?

C starts at (5, -4) and slides without turning.

Plotted on the grid: C at (5, -4), P at (-1, -1).

(6, -3)
(6, -5)
(6, -4)
(4, -5)

Answer: (6, -5)

How you get there

Moving 1 right takes x from 5 to 6, and moving 1 down takes y from -4 to -5, which means the image is at (6, -5).

Why the other answers tempt

Moving left or down makes a coordinate smaller, not bigger.

If they are stuck, say this

Moving right changes only the x coordinate and moving down changes only the y coordinate - deal with them one at a time.

Now do it live in The Transformation Deck

What this exercise is doing

The Transformation Deck

Drag the track to play the cards and watch the outline move. Then say where corner C finished.

The programme is “Flip in the line y = x”, then “Slide 2 right, 3 down”. Taking the cards one at a time, a flip in y = x SWAPS the two numbers: (x, y) becomes (y, x), and no sign changes at all; and then a slide adds the same pair of numbers to every corner: (x, y) becomes (x + 2, y − 3). Corner C starts at (-2, 3) and finishes at (5, -5). The order matters as much as the cards do: each card acts on wherever the shape has got to, not on where it started, so playing them the other way round can leave the shape somewhere else entirely.

Step 1. Play it. Drag the fold track all the way across to play both cards, then scrub back and forth.
Step 2. Where did it land?. Now the question: where does corner C finish?

What to say if they get stuck

Scrub the track slowly, and back again. The pale outlines show every place the shape stopped.
Follow corner C on its own rather than the whole shape - it leaves a dotted trail.
a slide adds the same pair of numbers to every corner: (x, y) becomes (x + 2, y − 3).

Open The Transformation Deck on its own page to share it

How translate a coordinate 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: determine a point image or translation vector on a coordinate grid, and it stops where one point and one translation only.

Compose coordinate transformations
Apply two stated coordinate transformations in order. Exactly two transformations are composed. Single transformations have separate skills.
Plot or read a coordinate
Read or place one point on a coordinate grid. Axis range and quadrant are explicit.
Reflect a coordinate
Determine a point image after reflection in a stated coordinate axis. One point and one stated mirror axis only.
Rotate a coordinate
Determine a point image after a stated rotation about the origin. The centre, direction, and turn are explicit.
Compose a visual transformation sequence
Apply three stated rotations or reflections in order. Exactly three transformations are composed. One-step and two-step transformations have separate skills.

Related maths skills

All maths 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about translate a coordinate

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.

: Determine a point image or translation vector on a coordinate grid. It is one of 55 named maths skills in the 11+, in the geometry strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
: Moving left or down makes a coordinate smaller, not bigger. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
: Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Moving right changes only the x coordinate and moving down changes only the y coordinate - deal with them one at a time.
: The skill map draws the line here: One point and one translation only. 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 geometry strand holds 15 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to translate a coordinate are classify an angle, compose coordinate transformations and identify a cube net. Each has its own exercise and its own link, and none of them needs an account.
: Use The Transformation Deck, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to translate a coordinate, 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.

Knowing which maths topic to practise is most of the work

A free diagnostic covers arithmetic, fractions, geometry, measure and data handling, and comes back with the topics to spend the next few weeks on.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic