NID DAT 2020 Exam Analysis for BDes Admissions

By Shaun D’Sa

NID DAT Prelims for Bachelor of Design (BDes) admissions was held from 10 am to 1 pm on December 29, 2019. Experts share difficulty level and exam pattern of NID entrance exam 2020 below.

The NID DAT 2020 prelims had no surprises unlike the previous year the pattern. The ratio of Aptitude (Part 1 - 30 marks) to drawing/ creative aptitude questions (Part 2 - 70 marks) remained the same. In NID Entrance Exam 2020, the Creative aptitude section tested the students for aptitude, perspective, creative thinking, storyboarding, and 2D graphic besides their basic drawing skills and sense of detailing,  

NID Exam Analysis 2020: Part 1- Aptitude Test (30 Marks) 

In this section of the exam, there were a total of 21 questions. The marking scheme was as follows:

• 12 Questions x 1 marks each = 12 marks
• 9 Questions x 2 marks each = 18 marks

Thus, the maximum marks that candidates could secure for these 21 questions was 30 marks. 

NID aptitude test had General knowledge / aptitude questions. Some of them are listed below:  

• The Kyoto Protocol
• What is Jaipur foot
• The link between Hampi and the Vijayanagar empire
• Kalighat style of paintings
• A question on embroidery styles 
• Nobel Prize winner -  Abhijit Banerjee
• Match the companies to their country of origin Samsung, Panasonic, Godrej, Siemens 
• Logos on 4 companies - Shell, Bharat Petroleum, Indian Oil, ONGC etc were shown, and the non petroleum company had to be identified, 
• A question on the Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur corridor was asked
• Also a question on an Indian musician who recently passed away - which form of Hindustani music was he proficient in? 

With standard reading of the newspaper / current affairs / good basic knowledge on Indian artists, performing artists and styles one would not find these questions difficult. Questions were also asked on verbal/ non verbal reasoning and spatial ability like:

• Circular Seating Arrangement
• Blood relations
• Distance and direction sense
• Series and sequences
• 2D Visual puzzles
• How to divide the given figure(L Shaped cake) into 4 equal parts  
• A visual question on percentage (for the given cubes, what is the percentage that is shaded) 

NID Exam Analysis 2020: Creative Aptitude Test (70 Marks) 

There were 6 questions that were asked in the drawing part of the exam. The first question was interesting, it tested both the students' aptitude and drawing skills, in which a 2D surface development of a cube had to be drawn in 3D with the correct graphic in the correct orientation. The rest of the questions were quite standard as asked in the previous years' question papers of NID, however, they were quite lengthy so a student really had to focus on time while answering these questions. The questions are listed below: 

However, overall there was a very good ratio of theory to drawing questions asked in the NID DAT which was the same as last year’s paper, so there was no changes with respect to that. Some students finished their aptitude part within the first 30 minutes so they had 2.5 hours to finish the drawing paper. So, in general students who practiced drawing fast, were able to finish their paper just in time and overall there were no surprises.