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Non-verbal Reasoning · Spatial

Match a solid and its view

Match a 3D arrangement to a specified 2D viewpoint.

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

Scrub the camera round and watch the solid squash flat into a drawing.

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.

Drawing what you would see

Picture yourself standing in front of it. Every cube becomes one square, and cubes lined up one behind another become the same square. Which of these drawings is what you would see?

1 of the cubes sit directly behind another cube from the front, so they share a square with it instead of adding one.

  1. 3 squares across and 3 squares down, filled at row 1 square 1; row 2 square 1; row 3 squares 1, 2 and 3
  2. 3 squares across and 3 squares down, filled at row 1 squares 1, 2 and 3; row 2 square 3; row 3 square 3
  3. 3 squares across and 3 squares down, filled at row 1 square 1; row 2 square 3; row 3 squares 1, 2 and 3
  4. 3 squares across and 3 squares down, filled at row 1 square 3; row 2 square 3; row 3 squares 1, 2 and 3

Answer: 3 squares across and 3 squares down, filled at row 1 square 1; row 2 square 1; row 3 squares 1, 2 and 3

How you get there

Seen from the front, each cube becomes one square and 1 of the cubes hide directly behind another one, which gives the drawing marked correct. Its mirror image has the same squares reversed left to right, so it shows the solid the wrong way round rather than a different solid.

Why the other answers tempt

A flipped drawing has all the right squares in all the wrong places. Check which side the sticking-out part is on before you choose.

If they are stuck, say this

Work out the outline first, then check it is the right way round: turning a drawing upside down changes it, and so does holding it up to a mirror.

Now do it live in View Matcher

What this exercise is doing

View Matcher

Scrub the camera round and watch the solid squash flat into a drawing.

A view is what the solid looks like with all the depth squashed out of it, so two cubes lined up one behind the other leave only ONE square on the paper. Work out the outline first, then work out which way round it goes: most wrong answers are the right outline flipped or turned.

  1. Step 1. Flatten it. Scrub the camera all the way round and watch the solid squash flat into the drawing beside it.
  2. Step 2. Pick the view. Which of these four is the front view of the solid?

What to say if they get stuck

  1. Drag the scrub track slowly. The solid squashes flat along the direction you are looking, and what is left is the drawing.
  2. Check the square that sticks out on its own first, then check which way round it sits.
  3. One cube here hides exactly behind another one, so the drawing has fewer squares than the solid has cubes.

Open View Matcher on its own page to share it

Where match a solid and its view 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.

The same thinking arrives from

Rotate a 3D solid mentally

Mental rotation supports matching a solid from a changed viewpoint.

Related non-verbal reasoning skills

All non-verbal reasoning 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about match a solid and its view

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.

Match a 3D arrangement to a specified 2D viewpoint. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the spatial strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.

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.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic