CEED Topper shares prep tips to crack Part A, Part B & Interview round

Logasrinivasan Palani, CEED Topper

Creativity and innovation being his second nature, Logasrinivasan Palani got talking about his hobbies by saying, “I spend most of my free time playing with paints and pencils. Sometimes I find myself surfing through new sketching and modelling software that I am not familiar with”. His hobbies formed a very important part of his prep for Common Entrance Examination for Design (CEED).

With a score of 60 in Part B of CEED 2017 exam, Logasrinivasan secured admission in MDes in Product Design and Engineering at IISc Bangalore. He shared that a total of 4,727 candidates appeared for CEED. Out of this number, 1911 candidates were shortlisted through CEED Part A exam and finally 935 aspirants cleared CEED Part B exam.

Know all about his prep strategy for CEED exam by going through the detailed interview Shiksha had with him.

Yes, I did expect to get shortlisted in CEED. My marks and rank in the design entrance exam are:

Marks obtained in Part A – 30.8

Marks obtained in Part B – 60

Open rank – 31

OBC -NCL rank – 8

I am from a family of four with my brother working in HCL as a Business Analyst. My dad has retired and is now a fitness and bodybuilding trainer. My mother is a fitness trainer by profession.

Simplifying the life of people has always been a rallying cry for me since my inchoate phase. When seen through the path of design ideologies, it always makes me wonder how we transformed our rocks and sand to spaceships and nuclear sources. But the question remains whether the ingenuity of such creations being done today will set off the resourceful minds of humans after 500 years. With the thirst of finding ways to these design methodologies, I devote myself to finding the answers.

Internet resources were the primary helping hand for my preparation. I went to the library to get the ideas of basics of design, sketching, and other things related to the exam but realised that I needed some more inputs to know the overall essence of the exam. Then I came to know about DQ labs through Facebook where I got some aptitude and other such questions that might appear in the exam. Spending 3-4 hours a day working on those questions enabled me to understand the structure of the exam easily and attempt them within a given time.

There was no particular coaching center that I joined, but I enrolled in an online CEED exam preparation module conducted by DQ labs, which consisted of 550 questions which had to be solved in a chronological order.

I started preparing for CEED exam about four months before the exam was to be conducted and I feel that this strategy may work for others as well. Some people are good at the sketching part, some are not. So, concentrating over the weaker regions plays an important part in one’s preparation.

I would usually spend around three hours a day practicing both sketching and aptitude questions. This included looking for and solving the questions. During the weekends my study hours ranged between 5-6 hours.

Books were not particularly mentioned anywhere for this exam but various CEED forums like, teacup blog, stuff you look helped me. DQ labs provided me with a set of 550 questions and some model exam papers which helped me to overcome the difficulty in managing time that one could commonly encounter in a CEED exam.

Some important topics that are being covered majorly in the exam include – Aptitude on general awareness, typography, tessellations, isometric drawings, famous personalities/artists and the likes.

For CEED Part A, questions from DQ labs preparation module, stuffyoulook blog, helped me not only to solve the questions but also in getting to know in-depth about the proper methodology in solving those questions.

In Part B of the exam, I would recommend one to start sketching real life objects/environment as much as possible till they are confident about their timeline management during a sketch and also getting the perspective and structures right. The sketches don’t need to be extremely realistic or detailed, but should make sure that the process of conveying the idea through your sketch is precisely and neatly executed.

I would consider spending more time on the areas that you are strong at and not spending time on the weaker sections would result in a difficult scenario during the exam.

Keeping in mind the time for each question and going through several practice sessions beforehand helped me while giving the exam.

Sticking to one question for a very long time would seriously end in a worst case scenario in CEED. Since it is a computerised exam module, one would find that the answer page closes once the time for Part A is over.

For me, Part A of CEED exam with mathematical fundamentals was quite difficult to crack in a short period of time.

Three months of serious work was put in preparing my portfolio which I not only prepared and compiled on a sheet but also questioned the background theory of each and every work that had been put. For instance - if a painting is made, one should know answers for questions like why this color? Why this mood in this picture? What is being conveyed to the viewer? Along with other such questions.

Once the CEED exam was over, I started preparing my portfolio with a hope of getting shortlisted in the exam. Once the results were announced I applied to all the Universities and design schools where further aptitude tests, model making tests, sketching evaluation and personal interviews were carried out.

I got selected for admission at IISc Bangalore where I appeared for one aptitude exam which contained questions on mathematical and logical reasoning skills, some sketching skills were also tested and once I cleared this round, I was called for the personal interview.

Plagiarism of your work should be strongly avoided, reasoning oneself with the 'why' part of your further design studies is more important than the ‘what’ and ‘how’ part.

I was asked to introduce myself and the interviewers started assessing me through my portfolio. A panel with five members were present from different design fields and they wanted to know why I wanted to pursue Product Design as a course. Some general knowledge questions were also asked.

Be yourself and learn time management skills which will be helpful in solving any type/style/format of questions asked.

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