Practice lab
Cube Folding Lab
Work out which faces end up where with the net held flat, the way a real aptitude item asks it, then fold the model and see whether you were right. Builds the mental picture spatial tests are really measuring.
Latin cross: 1-4-1, the friendly one. Forty-five seconds is our pace, not any airline's published limit.
Latin cross net, laid flat, 4 columns by 3 rows. Row 1: column 2 is A, cyan. Row 2: column 1 is E, pink; column 2 is C, violet; column 3 is F, chalk; column 4 is D, orange. Row 3: column 2 is B, teal.
Drag the model, or focus it and use the arrow keys.
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Shuffling the faces and picking a question.
Moves the colours, so a remembered pair stops helping.
Reading a net without folding it
Opposite faces never share an edge, on any net. Turning that into an answer takes one of four moves, and which one works depends on the net in front of you.
- Straight line of three
- Three panels in a row or a column: the two ends fold to opposite faces. This is the rule worth reaching for first, because it settles a pair in a second.
- Bend of three
- Three panels that turn a corner: the two ends meet along an edge on the cube, so they are never opposite. A bend rules a pair out rather than in.
- Zigzag of four
- Four panels that turn at every join: the two ends fold to opposite faces. This is the one that saves you on a staircase net, where no straight line of three exists.
- What is left over
- There are only three pairs. Settle two of them and the two panels you have not used must be the third, with no folding required.
That is the whole difference between the three nets here. The Latin cross gives up all three pairs to the straight-line rule. The offset 1-4-1 gives up two, and the third is what is left. The staircase has no straight line of three anywhere, so the first rule finds nothing on it and you fall back to the zigzag. Counting two panels along a path is not a general rule, and on the staircase it is wrong every time.
For training and reference only. This is practice material built from the geometry, not a reproduction of any airline’s assessment, and the 45 second pace is ours rather than a published limit.