2D Views of 3D Shapes

A shape built from cubes is shown. You pick the flat picture of what you would see from one side.

Look for the eye. Every question has one. It sits beside the shape and shows where you are standing. The words say the same direction. Then check the options, because they come in two kinds. Most are pictures made of squares. On five of our eighteen exam-level questions they are line drawings, and those need one extra step.

The whole skill is one line. Cubes lined up behind one another land on the same square. The picture throws depth away. It counts columns, not cubes, so eight cubes can print six squares, or four.

The method

Five beats: find the eye and say the direction, size the picture, do one column, say which side, add the steps.

1. Find the eye and say the direction. Two seconds. The eye points at the face you have to draw, so say that face out loud before you look at the options. The name says which corner of the page the eye stands in: above, front left, front right, back left or back right. All five get asked.
2. Size the picture. How many squares across, how many up. It is the cheapest cut here, and it often halves the page.
3. Do one column. Not one cube. Take the left-hand column and ask: is there anything at all in it, at this height? If yes, that square is filled — however many cubes hide behind it.
4. Say which side. Find a feature off to one side, like the tall column. Opposite viewpoints give the same picture flipped over — front left is opposite back right, and front right is opposite back left. So going round to the far side swaps what is on your left with what is on your right. From above, the near corner of the shape sits at the bottom.
5. Add the steps. Line-drawing questions only. A line inside the drawing marks where one block stands nearer than the one beside it. A drawing with the right outline and no inside lines is wrong.

Beat 4 is the one worth a name: the which-side check. It finishes the question.

Give each one 30 to 35 seconds. If you may write in the booklet, sketch the empty grid from beat 2 and fill it in. It is the biggest time saver here.

Rules to watch

• Hiding is the point. Every question is built so cubes vanish behind each other. Work out what is hidden, not what shows.
• From above, height stops mattering. A tower five cubes tall covers one square of the floor. From the side, depth stops mattering instead: a row running away from you prints a single square.
• Counting squares settles nothing. On 12 of our 13 eye questions, at least one wrong picture holds as many squares as the right one. Use the count as a check, never as an answer.
• The shaded square only narrows it to two. Seven of our thirteen shade one square for you. But a mirror on the page shades that same square, so beat 4 does the rest.
• Counting lines fails on the line-drawing kind too. On four of our five line-drawing questions, every option has the same outline and the same number of inside lines. Read where they are.
• Left and right are mirror images here. That is true of flat pictures. The type with 3D options works the other way, so say which one you are in first.

Watch for these traps

We looked at every wrong option in our eighteen exam-level questions.

• The view from somewhere else. 43 of the 72, six in every ten. A true, careful picture of the right shape, from a direction nobody asked about — once, even from underneath. Only the eye tells you which is which.
• One square out. 16 of the 72. The right picture with one square added, removed or moved. Compare square by square, not shape by shape.
• The mirror image. 8 of the 72. The right picture the other way round. It is also a real view of the same shape, the one from the opposite side, and that is what makes it so easy to take.
• The right outline, a line in the wrong place. 5 of the 72, and one on every line-drawing question. The outline is correct and a step line inside has moved. Read the inside as carefully as the edge.

Stuck at 30 seconds? Get the size right, get the which-side check right, pick and move on.

Try these yourself

Now have a go yourself — tap the picture that shows that view.

Related

• The complete 11+ question-type guide
• Different Views — the same idea, but the options are 3D
• 3D Rotation — the same shape turned, and the mirror trap

All example questions come from the Brainblox question bank — practise this question type inside 15 arcade games, timed mock exams and focused practice. Brainblox is an independent app: not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any exam board, school or assessment publisher, and it contains no past papers.