Reflected figures: 11+ non-verbal reasoning
Which option is the figure reflected in the mirror line? Every part ends up the same distance from the line, on the other side.
What the questions look like
A figure beside a dashed mirror line, standing up or lying flat, and five options. In a mirror line standing up, left and right swap; lying flat, top and bottom swap. Wrong options are the figure turned, unchanged, or reflected the other way.
See which way the line runs
Standing up swaps left and right; lying flat swaps top and bottom.
Move one part across
The square nearest the line stays nearest it, on the other side.
Check what shouldn’t change
With the line standing up, what’s at the top stays at the top.
A worked example
Which figure is the reflection in the dashed line?
The mirror line stands on the right, so left and right swap and top and bottom stay as they are.
The black square, top right, is nearest the line, so in the reflection it’s top left. The grey square stays at the bottom, on the right now.
Turned a half turn instead, the black square would be at the bottom. The top and bottom have swapped too, so that isn’t the reflection.
Try 8 questions
New questions every time, in the style of GL Assessment’s papers, and marked when you finish.
The usual mistakes
Choosing a half turn
It swaps left and right too, but it also turns the figure upside down.
Reflecting the wrong way
Swapping top and bottom when the line stands up.
Losing the half-shaded square
A square that’s half black is reflected too: its black half moves to the other side.
The other kinds of question
Each has its own page with a worked example and questions to try. What non-verbal reasoning is, and who tests it.
With Exam Prep, Thena sets practice papers in your child’s test’s style and goes over every mistake with them on her board: £49 a month with the Solo plan.
Questions about reflected figures
What changes in a reflection?
Only the side things are on. In a mirror line standing up, left and right swap and top and bottom stay where they are; in a mirror line lying flat, it’s the other way. Every part stays the same distance from the line.
Why do children pick the turned figure?
A half turn looks a lot like a reflection, because both put things on the other side. The difference shows on the side that shouldn’t change: a half turn swaps top and bottom as well.
Thena goes over every question your child gets wrong
She draws it on her board, finds where it went wrong and works it through with them, then gives them one like it to do alone.
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