Apply three stated rotations or reflections in order.
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.
This exercise practises compose a visual transformation sequence alongside its own main skill, Composing Transformations.
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.
Working through a sequence of transformations
Take the figure through the sequence one step at a time: rotate 90 degrees clockwise, then reflect in the vertical mirror line, then rotate 90 degrees clockwise.
Each of the 3 steps acts on the picture the step before it produced, which means the sequence has to be walked in order rather than judged from the first instruction.
flipped, then turned 270° clockwise
flipped, then turned 90° clockwise
turned 90° clockwise
flipped, with no turn
Answer: flipped, with no turn
How you get there
The figure has to be taken through all 3 steps in order - rotate 90 degrees clockwise, then reflect in the vertical mirror line, then rotate 90 degrees clockwise - because each step acts on the picture the step before it made rather than on the original; the other options are where the sequence sits after only some of the steps, or where it lands if two steps are swapped.
Why the other answers tempt
Stopping part-way through the sequence gives a figure that looks reasonable but is missing a step.
If they are stuck, say this
Redraw the figure in your head after each of the 3 steps rather than jumping to the end, because one option is exactly where the sequence sits part-way through.
Drag the track to play the cards and watch the outline move. Then say where corner C finished.
This engine’s own main skill is Composing Transformations. It practises compose a visual transformation sequence alongside it, and covers most of it rather than all.
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).
How compose a visual transformation sequence 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: apply three stated rotations or reflections in order, and it stops where exactly three transformations are composed. One-step and two-step transformations have separate skills.
Questions parents ask about compose a visual transformation sequence
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.
Apply three stated rotations or reflections in order. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the transform strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
Stopping part-way through the sequence gives a figure that looks reasonable but is missing a step. 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. Redraw the figure in your head after each of the 3 steps rather than jumping to the end, because one option is exactly where the sequence sits part-way through.
The skill map draws the line here: Exactly three transformations are composed. One-step and two-step transformations have separate skills. A question past that line is testing a different named non-verbal reasoning skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
The transform strand holds 4 skills that are tested together, and the pages next to compose a visual transformation sequence are compose two visual transformations, reflect a visual figure and rotate a visual figure. 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 compose a visual transformation sequence, 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.
Non-verbal reasoning is the paper families most often leave until last
A free diagnostic covers matrices, series, odd one out, rotation, reflection and the 3D questions, and shows where the time is worth spending.
