Measuring distances on a scale drawing using a ruler and interpreting what the measurement represents.
Where your child meets this in real life: Reading floor plans, treasure maps, or ordnance survey maps of the region
Each SEAG paper has 28 maths questions. Questions 29 to 50 are multiple choice with five possible answers, and questions 51 to 56 need a short written answer. With 56 questions in 60 minutes across English and maths, that is about a minute per question.
SEAGReady breaks read scale drawings into 2 steps, taught in order so each skill builds on the last.
Read measurements from scale drawings using scales of 1:10, 1:100, or 1:1000 and state the real-life length
Read measurements from scale drawings using scales like 1:20, 1:25, 1:50, or 1:200
Try three free questions from our read scale drawings course. They start easy and get harder, so you can see where your child's confidence runs out. If they manage the last one without a hint, this topic is probably secure. If not, the steps above show where to start.
Lily uses the floor plan shown. What is the real length of the living room?
Emily uses the bridge drawing shown. What is the real length of the main span?
Poppy uses the museum floor plan shown. How long is the main exhibition hall in metres?
This is the exact interactive worked example your child sees in SEAGReady. Step through it and watch the method build up.
Jessica is looking at a floor plan of her school. The scale on the plan is 1:100. She measures the corridor and finds it is 8 cm on the plan.
What is the real length of the corridor?
8 cm × 100
Scale 1:100 means 1 cm on the drawing is 100 cm in real life
Step 1 of 3
Jessica is looking at a floor plan of her school. The scale on the plan is 1:100. She measures the corridor and finds it is 8 cm on the plan.
What is the real length of the corridor?
The real corridor is 800 cm long.
The key insight: Multiply by the stated power of ten. With whole-number measurements, multiplying by 100 may look like appending two zeros.
Common mix-up: 8 ÷ 100 = 0.08 cm. Real life is BIGGER than the drawing, so we multiply, not divide.
These are the misconceptions we see most often in read scale drawings, including the ones our practice questions are specifically designed to catch.
Struggling with read scale drawings? The real gap is often in one of these earlier topics.
Sitting the SEAG test this November? Read our last-month revision plan, Paper 1 vs Paper 2 and test day guide.
SEAGReady finds the exact step where your child gets stuck, teaches it with worked examples like the one above, and brings it back for review so it sticks.
Free to start · no card needed