91热爆

How to describe 2D shapes

2D shapes can be described by their sides, their angles and their symmetry.

  • The sides might be equal in length and some might be parallel.

  • The angles could be right angles, but sometimes they are greater than or less than a right angle.

  • A 2D shape could have line symmetry or rotation symmetry, or both!

Various 2D shapes, including a triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon and octagon
Back to top

How to describe 3D shapes

3D shapes are described by their faces, edges and vertices.

The faces can be the same shape or different, and a 3D shape could have a curved surface as well as flat faces.

Various 3D shapes, including sphere, cube, cuboid, cone, cylinder and prism.
Back to top

Example 1

Dawn describes a 2D shape as having 4 right angles. What shape could it be?

Character and question mark
Back to top

Example 2

Bruce draws this quadrilateral. How can we describe it?

Rhombus

Back to top

Example 3

Sophie draws this triangle. How can we describe it?

right angled triangle

Back to top

Example 4

Mika draws a shape with 5 equal sides and 5 equal angles. What is her shape?

Back to top

Example 5

Chloe notices that her 3D shape has 5 flat faces. 4 of the faces are triangles.

She also counts that it has 8 edges and 5 vertices. What is her shape?

Back to top

Quiz

Back to top

NEW! Play Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica - the winter update. game

It's Mathematica as you鈥檝e never seen it before, with all-new festive backgrounds and costumes. Available for a limited time only. Use your maths skills to save the day before it's too late!

NEW! Play Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica - the winter update
Back to top

More on 3D shapes

Find out more by working through a topic