The objective of the Common Entrance Exam for Design (CEED) or Undergraduate Common Entrance Exam for Design (UCEED) is to assess the candidate’s aptitude for design involving visual perception ability, drawing skills, logical reasoning, and creativity, communication, and problem-solving skills.
The Comprehensive strategy includes
- Understand the questions asked in the exam. The best way is to go through the previous year’s papers and see what kind of questions are there, their difficulty level and which types are repetitive in nature.
- As CEED questions involve visual perception ability and creativity, they can’t be taught rather they can be developed. Start looking at creative approaches or ideas of usual objects, and the work of others and try to understand how this solution came. In this manner, you can creatively provide solutions to the questions asked in the exam.
- Start observing things, how they look, how they function, and what are their components. When you observe the previous year’s questions, you will realize that a lot of questions can be answered just by the usual observational skills.
- This observation exercise will also help you in finding solutions. CEED asks you to provide a solution for any problem so if you can identify the problem, you can also think of the solutions.
As we are working on developing the concepts, creativity, and visualization, we need to work on another equally important aspect of the exam which is the PRESENTATION
- Whatever answer or solution you think of, you need to provide that in a presentable manner on the sheet. You need to develop your understanding of various day-to-day objects and you should be able to sketch them properly.
- Practice sketching objects daily. Pick different shapes, try different angles, and shade them as per lighting conditions. Try different tools but also try freehand sketching as mostly, using tools is not allowed in the exam.
- In drawing questions, CEED also asks about some particular views like answers from the view of a 5’10” person or answers from an 8 years old child like that, so understanding the objects is necessary. You should be able to visualize and draw the object from different angles.
- Get yourself familiarized with different tools and mediums like different grade pencils, wooden and mechanical pencils, erasers, kneaded erasers, etc. Practice speed sketching, drawing guides, and quick shading techniques to reach a presentable answer.
Some miscellaneous activities that are useful for the Exam
- Solve quizzes in which you need to find the missing part by observing the trend. It could be numbers or some visuals. These are present in major newspapers or their weekly magazines.
- Play mobile games in which you need to identify the company’s logo as 1 question is usually asked from it. Carefully observe the color schemes and the font used in those logos.
- Read comics or storyboards. Observe the basics of animation from there, how the movement is shown, how characters are placed, and how text is provided. Try to make your own storyboard on any topic which will improve your sketching skills, animation skills, storytelling skills, and visualization skills. This will also make you a good communicator in the field of visual communication.
- Revise your basic mathematics formulae like surface area and volume of basic solids. These are useful in solving major questions and can also act as a roadblock for you in getting answers if you are not aware of them.
Look at the type of questions in CEED and relate them to day-to-day life, you will realize that you can actually prepare for the exam with your daily observations, preparation, and proper guidance. The major part of preparation includes understanding the exam and its content and then having a structured preparation till the exam to score good marks.
Our institute having expertise in this field can majorly contribute to the preparation efforts