Question

What is the order of rotational symmetry of a rectangle ?
A. 1
B. 2
C. 3
D. 4

Answer 1

Hint: The order of rotational symmetry of a shape is the number of times it can be rotated around a full circle and still look the same. A rectangle is defined to be an "equiangular parallelogram". So a rectangle is any four-sided polygon, having two pairs of parallel opposite sides, and four angles which are equal in measure.

Complete step-by-step answer:

If we rotate a rectangle 90 degrees each time , we will notice that we are able to get the original shape twice. The first time we get the original image, we get it with a rotation of 180 degrees and the second time, we get it with a rotation of 360 degrees. Since we were able to return the original shape 2 times, the rectangle has rotational symmetry of order 2.

Note: We only need to rotate the figure up to 360 degrees. Once we have rotated the figure 360 degrees, we are back to the original figure.