Prep Tips for CEED 2025 Part B Exam

1. Learn to sketch objects: You don’t have to be Picasso to sketch or to paint for scoring well in Part B. You should be able to express your concept with as much detail as possible. If your concept requires you to sketch a chair, you should practice sketching it as realistically, not artistically, as possible. When sketching pay close attention to your pencil strokes and even closer attention to the proportions of the parts. Further, utilise the space given to you in the paper as wisely as possible. That is to say, don’t sketch too small so that there is too much empty space left around or too big that it goes out of bounds! A good idea is to draw a very faint sketch and erase it before finalising. Next, comes the shading. Learn how to depict materials like wood, glass, steel, plastic, etc. using simple pencil shading. This will help you express your ideas much better. Invest in a good pencil by Staedtler Mars 780 if needed. Avoid using non-erasable media such as ball pens or watercolors in case you want to later change your sketch and make a better idea that strikes you.
2. Show your designs as used by the users: All your designs are designed for making the life of the user easier. Therefore, it is important that you need to show how your product is used. Maybe for this, you will have to brush up your human anatomy sketching skills. Perhaps you need not always draw a full human figure, but just a part of it. For example, if your solution is a device to help the elderly open a jar, it is sufficient to sketch just the hand that holds the device. Sketching human figures also gives you an idea of how big or how small your product is.
3. Be creative! Some questions in CEED Part B explicitly mention that bonus marks are awarded for creativity, but it goes without saying that creativity is what design is all about! So the basic question comes, how to be creative? There are a large number of books and websites dedicated to this topic. You can choose to go through a few of them and see what works best for you. Based on the experience of the author and several students, techniques such as SCAMPER, Five W’s, and Six Thinking Hats, (Edward de Bono) seem to work better than the rest. Use them to your advantage and generate the concepts that will wow the examiner and none of your competitors would be able to think of
4. Read the instructions. Read them again! As soon as you get the paper, make sure that you read the instructions. Make sure you read them again. Additional time may not be allocated for this, but if you miss out on any important instructions, it will cost you some precious marks. Therefore, read the instructions and understand exactly what is asked of you
5. Plan your time in advance: After understanding the instructions make sure which questions are compulsory and which are optional. You will have to attempt both Part A and B in the same 3 hours slot. On average it takes about an hour to complete Part A, therefore, you have to plan your remaining time for Part B. See how much time is allocated for the questions you have to attempt and plan your time accordingly. Spending half an hour on a 5-mark question is a complete waste of time. So, plan your time and make sure you stick to it. This means that you will move to the next question as soon as the time you have allocated to that question is over!
6. For any solution sketch in perspective view: When you look at a long road, the sides of the road appear to meet at the horizon. This is how things appear in real life. Therefore, to induce a sense of realism in your design, always practice sketching in perspective.
7. More visuals than text: In CEED, make it a point to sketch as much as possible. Aim to make your sketches speak for themselves. Instead of writing on an arrow with the word “made of wood” it’s better to shade in such a way that this is evident! Have you seen a well-drawn instruction card found in the airplanes safety manual? It has absolutely bare essential words. Such a level of sketching, though simple, explains well what you want to say. Simple sketching also means that you will have more time to solve other questions.

Follow these tips and be certain that they will help you score decently in CEED 2025 Part B exam.

About the Author:

Prasanna Gadkari is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. Along with a career in Product Design spanning over eight years, Prasanna has mentored hundreds of aspirants to reach their dream of doing a Master in Design (M.Des) from IITs, IISc and NID. He runs TeaCupBlog, a place where he and other students share their tips and experiences on a pro bono basis.