NID Entrance Exam

Hi Muthu,
The aspiring candidate must possess at least one of the following minimum qualifications to be considered eligible for admissions:
Bachelor degree of minimum 4-year duration in any specialization, after 10+2 system, from any university or institute recognised by law in India. Condition: Applicant must (have passed/have appeared for/be appearing for) the Bachelor degree examinations before July 2018.
OR
Bachelor degree of minimum 3-year duration in any specialization, under the 10+2 system. Condition: Applicants must have passed the Bachelor degree examinations before July 2017.
OR
Full-time Diploma of minimum 4-year duration in Design/Fine Arts/Applied Arts/ Architecture, after 10+2 system, from any university or institute recognised by law in India. Condition: Applicants must (have passed/have appeared for/be appearing for) the Diploma examinations before July 2018.

Keeping the outline in mind, let's see some tips that will help you take the first step towards to performing well in NID Entrance Exam and fulfilling your dream of studying at NID.
NID that is all about balancing skills: You don't have to really worry if your sketching is bad. NID, in my opinion, sees a balance of skills. The people who secured well did not necessarily have awesome sketching skills, but they were able to generate ideas which were out-of-the-box. This does not mean that you don't need sketching skills, but if your ideas are really terrific, NID might overlook minor flaws in your sketches. Just make sure that the sketches you make are up to the point and express what you have in your mind.
-Prepare for weird questions and show your creativity: Having said about the balance of skills, NID questions are nowhere predictable in their nature! The questions actually show the creativity that you will be taught in the college. There are questions that test your sketching skills to the limit. Be sure that you have enough practice of sketching weird stuff. For example, practice sketching how a city would appear to you from inside a manhole. All that matters is how creatively you apply yourself in the given situation. Similarly, weird questions can be a golden opportunity for you to showcase your creativity. Therefore, be as creative as you wish when facing such question.
- Know the design symbolism and conventions well: For NID, the questions are often left open-ended with no clear insight into what could be a so-called right answer to it. This is just to test whether a candidate can present her/his design well. Make sure that you know the design conventions such as gestalt principles, the meaning of colors, applications of different materials, etc, as well as design symbolism like speech bubbles, zoom in gestures, graphical symbolism, etc. This will help you understand the question and express your ideas in good depth.
- Choose your media carefully: NID that paper is not suitable for using wet media such as sketch pens or watercolors. Therefore, stick to dry media which includes color pencils, pastels, etc. Media like ball pens and fine lines are preferred by some designers, but use them only if you are quite confident of what you are going to make. Also, during practice sessions, practice only on A4 papers.

You don't need to have maths.
NID exam includes multiple choice questions and drawing related questions and is designed to evaluate the following abilities of the candidate.
1. Visualization and Spatial ability: It is the potential to detect, imagine and visualize shapes. It is the ability to interpret 2D, 3D shapes and other similar objects.
2. Observation and Design sensitivity: It includes the ability to detect concealed properties in ordinary things, people, situations, events and thinking critically about them.
3. Environmental and Social awareness: It includes the awareness of environmental factors such as climate, population, water, vegetation, pollution, weather, natural resources etc., and their implications on the design of products, images, infrastructure and environment. It also includes the awareness of history, architecture, artists, paintings, dance forms, symbols, history of the designed artifact, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable design, art, sculpture and literature.
4. Analytical and Logical reasoning: It assesses the ability to consider a group of facts and rules, and, given those facts and rules, determine what could or must be true. It is the ability to follow the rules and work as per the instructions without an error. It tests your ability to look at information, be it qualitative or quantitative in nature and discern patterns within the information.
5. Drawing skills: It is not necessary to be a pure artist but you should be aware of basic elements in design sketching like proportion, perspective, lights and shadows, composition and spaces.