Nothing floats: counting cubes you cannot see
If a cube has air under it, something you cannot see is holding it up — and it counts. Counting first is the cheapest check on the paper, and turning a block never changes the total.
3D
4 posts on this. Written by Mat and Alicia, who prepare pupils for the Buckinghamshire Transfer Test every week in Winslow.
Which side of the landmark?
A cube-built solid has twenty-four square-on positions and is the same solid in every one. The mirror image survives the cube count, the outline and the silhouette — and fails only on how the parts are arranged around a landmark.
Skip one square, and write the three pairs down
Six faces means three pairs, always. Squares that touch fold up side by side, so skip one along a line to find opposites — and on a bent net, look for the zig-zag.
Count the piles, not the cubes
A stack of four cubes is still one square from above. Height shows from the front and not from above; depth never shows at all — and both views are usually sitting in the options.