NIFT 2015 Entrance Exam Analysis
The NIFT written entrance examination held on February 8, 2015 was more or less on the expected lines with a few surprises thrown in, as it should be for any entrance examination.
View NIFT entrance exam analysis for test held on February 22, 2015.
Earlier, Shiksha.com spoke to some students who shared that the NIFT CAT 2015 was simple whereas they found the NIFT GAT test to be a little difficult. View NIFT exam 2015 student reactions here.
Aspirants also shared the questions asked in NIFT CAT 2015. Know what aspirants had to say about CAT 2015.
NIFT Entrance Exam’s Phase-I Paper Based Test (PBT) was held in 32 test cities spread across India on February 8, 2015. View list of NIFT 2015 exam centres here.
NIFT CAT 2015 Analysis
Discussing Design first, the Creative Ability Test (CAT) had three questions to be attempted. The first question was based on visual graphics which asked the students to create a visual on any of the themes given. The students had a choice of three quotes: ‘Where there is a will, there is a way’, ‘Better late than never’ or ‘Silver lining’. Here one could just create a visual which would best represent the inspiration, it could have been done via taking a real life inspiration eg. The amputee sportswoman, Arunima Sinha, who scaled Mount Everest to represent the first theme or it could be a completely imaginative and creative visual showing a personified desert plant enjoying itself under the sun in the pink of its health inspite of dirth of water in harsh desert conditions.
The second question was an interesting combination of product design / picture composition through the form exploration/ morphing technique where the students had to variate an alphabet of their choice into a product or picture across four blocks, starting from the original alphabet and then manipulating the lines, adding or removing them, into the creative end product/ picture. This was a true to NIFT kind, a real test of impromptu creativity and imagination, the X factor, either you have it in you or you don’t. Guess any creative individual would have enjoyed this question thoroughly. Eg. A letter ‘B’ could be converted into a snowman composed with a backdrop, or a letter ‘P’ could be morphed into a beautiful handfan.
The third question was again a visual communication category and a very expected one at that. The students had to create a poster with a mascot on any one of the three topics i.e. Swachch Bharat, Make in India & Food security. Here the motive was to test how tuned in are the students to the current happenings around them in our country and also if they know the difference between design elements like logo & mascot and if they can use them in relevance to a poster. A mascot is a living form animated to create a personality/ spokesperson/ face of an event or campaign. eg. The little girl Meena, the mascot for ‘Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan’ (Education for all). This required the students to first create a mascot and then incorporate and illustrate it into a poster to communicate, motivate, mobilise the masses or make them aware of the aspects of chosen campaign. The handling of this question would give an insight into the social consciousness, emotional quotient and economic pragmatism, ability to identify the clinch areas of the implementation of a programme practically at the ground level and suggesting solutions to address the same besides the creative ability to communicate the apparently serious issue in a beautiful, light hearted, witty/ humorous yet impactful communication to be able to arrest visual attention and make a lasting impact on the viewer and get the message across to make the desired difference. The illustration and rendering had to be fetching enough.
The CAT was similar for both Bachelors & Masters in Design.
NIFT GAT 2015 Analysis
The General Ability Test (GAT) for Design, Technology & Management was the projected mix of English language, comprehension, quantitative, reasoning & business domain, though a little lengthy for the latter two (five comprehensions, six cases and four situation passages, besides other segments). Just as the trend is with every entrance that there is a certain difficulty level focussed upon a particular section, which keeps varying every time, it can be said that this year it was Business Domain. Where the management and technology paper focused on History of Fashion almost entirely, the design paper had it more on general creative awareness. The questions were the likes of ‘who introduced indigo as a dye in clothing’, ‘the rock garden of Chandigarh is made up of which material’, ‘the tag line forever is used by which jewellery brand’, the brand ambassador for ponds’ et al.
The comprehension saw five passages of moderate length with fairly comprehensible language. Quantitative had questions in speed time, upstream and downstream, profit loss, simple interest and other expected class X level topics. The reasoning segment consisted of questions on series, syllogism, venn diagrams, rankings, sitting arrangements, direction etc again not a big departure from the convention. The case study had business cases and situation analysis/ assumptions/ inferences variety in equal mix. English language was about synonyms, antonyms, plurals, fill in the blanks, identifying the misspelt words, spotting errors et al..
It is advisable to go through as many mocks as possible for 22nd February to manage time better and also study more on business domain with more focus on fashion history and brands, endorsements, tag lines across all products in apparels, beauty, watches, eyewear, jewellery, perfumes, footwear, automobile etc. However, it wouldn’t be surprising to find a complete turnaround for the next one with conventional GK and current affairs and may be a twist or higher difficulty level in a segment other than BD.
Wishing luck for the February 22, 2015 examinations and the results for the two written exams!!!
About the Author:
Shipra Anand is the Founder Director of Academy for Fashion Careers in Lucknow and has 18 years of experience in the field of fashion and design. She offers career counselling and also trains students for NID, NIFT, Pearl, FDDI, CEED, NATA and other design, art and architecture entrance examinations. A post graduate from NIFT, New Delhi, Anand has industry experience with names like Lacoste and Wild Orchids.
