CEED 2020 Topper Interview: AIR 3, Pramod Ranjan shares tips to crack exam

Pramod Priya Ranjan secured AIR 3 in CEED 2020 held on January 18. Know his prep strategy, success mantras, future plans, and more on Shiksha.

IIT Bombay released CEED result on March 1, 2020. Pramod Priya Ranjan scored 66.75/ 100 to secure All India Rank (AIR) 3 in CEED 2020. On cracking CEED exam, Pramod took admission in the Industrial Design course offered at IIT Delhi.

Pramod completed his Bachelor in Industrial (Product) Designing from MIT Institute of Design, Pune. After this, he worked on his self-initiated product based project on Menstrual Hygiene and got incubated at ‘AIC – MIT ADT Incubator Forum, Pune’.

Belonging to Ranchi, Pramod’s childhood was influenced by Art and Culture. His father is Head of Department (HOD) Fine Arts at DPS, Ranchi and his mother is a Teacher at Vivekananda Vidya Mandir (VVM), Ranchi. His younger sister is a BTech graduate.

Since childhood, Pramod was interested in art and craft which led him to choose Design as his Bachelor’s degree. Apart from his fondness for Design, he likes to read and understand the collaboration of design and business.

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Shiksha spoke to Pramod Ranjan and he shared CEED prep strategy, success mantras, future plans, and a lot more. Go through the detailed interview below.

Yes. I was confident I will be able to clear it. I got the third rank in the General category and my CEED 2020 score was 66.75 / 100.

The CEED score is calculated by this formula – 0.25 x (marks of Part A) + 0.75 x (marks of Part B). So, my Part A and B score of the exam was as follows:

• CEED Part A Score: 61.50/100
• CEED Part B Score: 68.50/ 100

A large part of Designing and particularly Industrial Design involves problem-solving activities, which I love to do and will be involved with. Design is a junction between multiple domains and it is a great space for a creative person to operate. I am doing my Masters again in Design to take my understanding and skills to an advanced stage, where I will get to explore different aspects of this field, keeping a business perspective in mind.

I have always been interested in Strategic Design Management and Industrial Design.

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I started preparing for CEED exam exactly 1.5 months before it. I didn’t want to do any sort of preparation before this, as the only preparation I wanted to do was to solve previous year papers and sample papers. Since I have done my Bachelor's in Design, I was good with basic skills like sketching which got polished while practicing these papers.

The only challenge I faced was to manage other activities of my startup while preparing for the CEED exam in those 1.5 months which involved taking out proper time daily to sit and solve papers.

For candidates who have not been in Design, Art, Architecture, or similar fields, I will suggest to start working on the required skills under the guidance of a good mentor for about 6-8 months before exams.

I didn’t take any formal coaching. The only coaching I took was way back in 2014-15 for my bachelor's Design entrance exams and that too in an informal way from my father who is a Fine Arts specialist in Ranchi.

Other than this, I joined a 10 days crash course back in 2015 for Bachelors entrance exam at one of the leading design coaching centre in Ahmedabad and it was a very poor experience for me and the faculty, as well as course material, were poor.

For CEED, to practice and brush-up, I downloaded previous year sample papers which are available free online and ordered sample paper sets (usually sets have 10 papers) from two coaching institutes.

My humble suggestion to all the CEED aspirants will be to get a good mentor or small local training centre to prepare for the exam instead of going for a big branded coaching centre.

For people who come from a non-design or art education background, I will suggest that they should start preparing about 6-8 months before the exam date. On weekdays, they should just sketch and work on basic skills with a local mentor for about one hour; and on weekends they should solve one question paper at least and get their responses checked with the mentor.

For people who have received Design, Art or similar education, I will suggest, starting with acing basic skills like sketching about two months before the exam date on weekdays and solve at least two question papers on weekends.

I tried to sit for about 1-2 hours each day for 1.5 months to solve papers. I even skipped studying sometimes when I did not feel like it or due to some other work. Also, I usually sit to study at night (and sometimes in afternoon) because I feel the night time is silent and good to focus on creative things.

I didn’t refer to any study material as such, and just solved some sample papers. I haven’t seen any ‘good’ study material so far and don’t think any such thing will also exist, knowing the nature of Design papers.

Anyway, but there is a strategy which I can suggest. Candidates mainly need Study Material for Part A. Usually, topics like Current Affairs, Maths, Science, Cultural (Indian and Western), Creative-based General Knowledge and obviously different types of Reasoning-based questions are asked.

One should not care about Current Affairs, Maths, and Science. Some people try to read books on this and I see it as a great waste of time.

Now, for reasoning-based questions, one can try a couple of Architecture related study materials.

For Cultural and Creative based questions, while solving the sample and previous years' papers, one will be able to identify the pattern of domains in between questions. So, after solving the paper, one should do an online search of the same and similar topics and study for it. For example, if there is a question about a cartoon in a sample paper, one is solving, then after solving the entire paper, the student should search online about that particular cartoon and in general about cartoons. Searching about the cultural and creative based knowledge after solving the paper will help far more than any material distributed by any coaching Institute.

To my understanding, there are none. Usually, people score more in Part B as compared to Part A, but I see this mostly because of their fear of negative marking which is just in Part A.

Aspirants need to give Part A and Part B of the CEED exam in a slightly different manner. Some tips are mentioned below.

CEED Part A Prep Tips:

• One should try to answer maximum questions and not be afraid of negative marking.
• Calculate the time you should give to each question and don’t go beyond that.

CEED Part B Prep Tips:

• Distribute the time you should give to each question as per your comfort, requirement, and marks allotted.
• Finish those questions first with which you are comfortable within the fixed time you decided. Usually, some questions in Part B will be skill-based and remaining on problem-solving. I will suggest completing skill-based questions first and in parallel think about the solution of problem/reasoning-based questions and solve them later. But never cross the self-allocated time for each question.
• Keep some time in the end to finish the unanswered questions, which you might have left mid-way because you self-allocated time would have got crossed.
• Avoid coloring, unless they specifically ask you to do so. Usually maximum they will ask to do a pencil render in a question.

There are lot of people and institutions (non-credible) who will try to give all Gyan and Jagraan. Listen to only credible sources and that to, few sources. All your doubts will get answered in the Admission Booklet of CEED. The key is confidence and focus. Social Media for exchanging of tips, knowledge is very much chaotic, so avoid it.

For each question, the time was pre-determined in my mind before I attempted it. I tried to never cross the allotted time and obviously some of questions didn’t finish in the allotted time. To deal with such a scenario, I had already kept an extra time at the end of the exam to attempt the unanswered questions.

To keep mind relaxed, focused and not being anxious about anything.

The determining factor can change from year to year. For CEED 2020, I know that minimum marks were required in Part A, and then only Part B paper was to be evaluated. So, Part A was the determining factor.

I had no plans. I wanted to answer what is asked with complete honesty and share my journey so far, my current work and future plans/my vision, with the panel. Also, I wished not to get intimidated by anything and not to carry any pre-conceived notion.

I applied at IISc Bangalore, IIT Delhi (IITD), IIT Guwahati (IITG) and IIT Bombay (IITB). After applying, each Institute releases its own list of shortlisted candidates for Studio Round. They usually call 7-8 times the number of candidate to the number of seats available for admission.

Usually the Studio Round comprises of 30% weightage (and they consider 70% of CEED score). Of this 30% weightage, 20% is for Studio Test and the remaining 10% for Interview round in which Portfolio or Work profile is a part too.

For applying at IITB after CEED, they also ask couple of questions regarding ‘SoP (Statement of Purpose)’ and ask to submit a Portfolio. In 2020 due to Covid19, IISc and IITD declared that they will not conduct Studio Round and will take admission purely on CEED marks. IITG took a virtual test in which one problem statement was given regarding Covid19 and one had to solve and submit it online in 8-9 hours. At IITB, a separate portfolio submission and online interview round happened. Couple of Institutes declare the final marks and shortlist-waiting list of candidates and couple of them didn’t release any such list or marks. I obviously got into IISc and IITD, and for IITG I was among the top preferences, but unfortunately IITB didn’t selected me for admission.

My Interview only happened with IITB and I applied for only one discipline that is Industrial Design. The interview was great and lasted 10 minutes. It happened on Zoom Application and I was in waiting room for about 20 minutes. As soon as the interview started, the panel was already looking at my previously submitted portfolio. One person asked me to introduce myself and so I did. I talked about my background, my business, projects and why I wanted to do masters. The panel was very impressed by the work and what I have been doing. A person also mentioned that I didn’t need to get further education and should just continue what I am doing. The person appreciated MIT ID and the fact I came from a small town and doing exceptional work in Business/Startup. But unfortunately, when that result came, I was not selected. I assume that was because they might have thought that they should give chance to some other person who might not be aware about design as much as I was or mostly, they would have thought I would be learning the same things which I already knew. Anyway, the selection would have been on merit basis and if there is/are any other factor(s) also involved then it should have been in written in booklet/brochure so that my time and energy should not have gone wasted. IITB didn’t release marks and shortlist or waiting list.

I have some tips for aspirants for preparing their portfolio and these are mentioned below:

1. Just show maximum of 3-4 works and each project should be explained in 3-4 pages maximum.
2. Complete Portfolio should not be more than 15 pages.
3. First page should consist of your resume.
4. It should be 1 sided, on A4 sheets and horizontal.
5. Try to be as clean and crisp as possible.
6. Don’t worry about the final professional/mature output of the project. Focus on showing the process, skills and interest. Don’t fake anything.
7. Before every project, mention all the details about it like timeline, company/clients, etc. Give proper credits to everyone involved by mentioning their name and role in it.

Read More:

• CEED Topper Profile 2020
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• CEED Syllabus
• CEED Cutoff
• CEED Analysis
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