Abstract. We consider sign-changing solutions of the Dirichlet problemwith n 0 interior roots. We give a necessary and sufficient condition that a turn occurs at the solution (λ ,u(x)) , depending only on the maximum value of the solution u(x) . If a turn does occur, we give another formula allowing to compute the direction of the turn. Our results generalize those in P. Korman, Y. Li and T. Ouyang [6], where positive solutions were considered. We give similar results for Neumann problem.Mathematics subject classification (2010): 34B15.