CEED Topper shares Prep Strategy

Srinag, CEED Topper

A graduate in Mechanical Engineering from RNS Institute of Technology, Bengaluru, Srinag K A took a drop year and prepared for CEED 2017. Srinag secured Rank 15 in CEED exam and was offered admission in Vehicle and Mobility Design Programme at Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay.

Talking about his hobbies he said, “I love trivia. I play quizzes online. I watch documentaries about the world wars. Apart from this, I love sketching especially aircrafts, sci fi planes”. Design was always his field of choice and elaborating on the same he was quoted as saying, “My interest in design started with the love for vehicle aesthetics. After exploring more, I realised that design also has a functionality aspect to it. A person's life can be improved by design. This aspect drew me closer to design”.

Read on to know more about Srinag’s success mantra and adopt a similar strategy to crack CEED exam this year.

Yes. I did. During the CEED entrance exam, I was able to complete the solutions for all the questions in Part B. The Part A scores were out a few weeks after the entrance exam and I had scored 35.2. I was quite confident that I was going to get shortlisted.

My CEED Part A score was 35.2, Part B score was 64 and I got a rank of 15.

My sketching skills weren't good. I started drawing circles, ellipses, lines, curves with a ball pen on 10 sheets per day. I feel newspaper is the cheapest and the best medium to practice on.

I regularly used to watch videos or documentaries on design. These videos included interviews with famous designers (industrial and automotive), design history, how products are made, how vehicles are made, manufacturing process and of course, design sketching. 

I started observing things and actions more carefully. This helped me to spot design problems and I tried to provide solutions.

It completely depends upon one’s skills. If you're good at sketching, you can focus on just design thinking and problem solving which doesn't require much preparation. It just requires you to observe and visualise.  If your sketching skills aren't good, then you need to spend extra time to improve your skills. 

I didn't have a fixed time table as such while I was preparing for CEED. But I regularly did a few things such as drawing circles, ellipses etc. 

I used to solve puzzles online especially the ones which require 3D visualisation etc. There are non-verbal reasoning books available in the market and online which may be referred for solving questions in Part A ofCEED exam. 

I would say basics of all the fields of design, Indian culture and history, Indian architecture, material and manufacturing process. Just be curious about your surroundings and try to find answers for your questions created by your curiosity, that's the best way to prepare for CEED.

Being curious and finding out how to solve the design problems around you is the best way to prepare for CEED. Solving previous years’ papers is a must. Try to get some feedback from people around you so that you'll be able to see things from their perspective. Any design solution you put on the paper must be communicative. So, whatever design problem you solve, sketch it on paper and ask people if they're able to understand your design solution. This helps in improving your visual representation skills. It is extremely necessary to have some knowledge on sketching humans in different postures and humans of different age groups. Other basic skills such as sketching sectional views, exploded views etc are also necessary.

Spending too much time in detailing. Candidates must understand that it's a design entrance examination, not an art examination. Here, ideas are given top priority. You'll be given scores mostly based on your ideas and hence this must be given priority. Preparing for CEED just to get selected into a college isn't also a good thought either. The candidate must prepare to become a designer.

In CEED Part A, I answered questions which were easy to crack. I first attempted those questions which I felt might take more time to answer and tried to find out the correct answer. Due to negative marking, I didn't attempt any questions which I was not aware of. In CEED Part B, my top priority was the 50 marker question and then the 20 marker was next in the list followed by the 10 marker.

Focusing too much on details. The required skills is problem solving.

I would say the story composition question wasn't easy for me as I hadn't tried something like that before.

In CEED Part A, it purely depends upon your knowledge and smartness. So, the more you're aware of things related to design and smarter you are when it comes to selecting the question which you're confident of answering correctly, higher are your chances of clearing part A of the design exam.

In CEED Part B, it's about how you answer a 50 marks question. If you're able to clearly sketch and communicate your ideas for the design solution, chances of you scoring high are brighter. 

Stay curious and observe your surroundings instead of just seeing them.