How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months, Tips & Strategies

How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months, Tips & Strategies

Edited By Ritika Jonwal | Updated on May 27, 2025 03:14 PM IST | #UCEED
Upcoming Event
UCEED  Exam Date : 18 Jan' 2026 - 18 Jan' 2026

The Undergraduate Common Entrance Exam for Design, or UCEED Exam is an exam for admission of students into B.Des programs at IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati, IIT Hyderabad, and IIITDM Jabalpur. It is a national-level entrance exam that lasts for 3 hours. The entrance exam comprises a total of 300 marks, with 2 sections. UCEED 2026 will tentatively be conducted in January 2026. The exam tests a student’s logical and practical abilities, along with his/her scope of sketching skills. In this article, we will discuss how to prepare for UCEED 2026 in 3 months.

This Story also Contains
  1. Other Useful Resources for UCEED 2026 Preparation
  2. How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months - Section-A NAT, MSQ, MCQ
  3. Frequently asked questions from NAT, MSQs, and MCQs
  4. Section of focus for UCEED 2026
  5. How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months - Section-B Drawing
How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months, Tips & Strategies
How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months, Tips & Strategies

The exam is divided into these parts: NAT, MSQs, and MCQs. Go through the UCEED Syllabus to get a detailed understanding. We will discuss some highly important topics with high weightage. Questions from these sections have been quite repetitive and hence present a good chance at scoring.

Included are some tips to perform well in Section B, drawing part.

Other Useful Resources for UCEED 2026 Preparation

Students can go through and download these free preparation PDFs in their effective preparation for UCEED 2026:

UCEED Preparation Guide

Download Here

UCEED Official Sample Question - Solution Creation
UCEED Previous Year's Question Papers with Solutions PDF

Download Here

UCEED High Weightage Topics + Practice Questions

How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months - Section-A NAT, MSQ, MCQ

Based on the UCEED 2026 Syllabus overview, here are some important topics under each section that can be expected:

  1. Visual and Spatial Reasoning, Observation, and Quantitative Aptitude

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Surface Counting, Image Manipulation, Mensuration, Simple Mechanics and Rotational Motion, Mirror and Shadow, Ratio Proportion, Boat and stream problems, Work and Time, Percentage, Paper folding

  1. Analytical Reasoning

UCEED Past 5 Years Cutoff (2020-2024)
Candidates seeking BDesign admission in IITs can check past 5 years UCEED cutoff.
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Arguments and Statements, Assumptions and Reasoning, Seating arrangement, Direction Sense, Syllogism, Data Sufficiency, Coding and Decoding, alphabet and number series.

  1. Environmental and Social Awareness

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Audio and Video Terminologies, Scholastic science, World Heritage Sites, Folk dance and music, Architecture styles and art forms, and Technology.

Also Read:

Frequently asked questions from NAT, MSQs, and MCQs

Here are some frequently asked questions from each section, based on the analysis of previous years' papers from UCEED:

NAT

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MSQs

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MCQs

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Section of focus for UCEED 2026

How to decide what single section to focus on/ what is the highest-scoring section? This is a very subjective question that students can answer for themselves by solving the previous year’s Sample question papers for UCEED. This will give them a clear idea of where they are getting stuck and where they need to improve and practice better. This will tell them individually as per their preparation what to focus on, hence giving them much scope of qualification by allowing them to attempt questions strategically.

You may also check

How to Prepare for UCEED in 3 Months - Section-B Drawing

This happens to be the best section of the examination as it gives the students a clear, less constrained way to prove themselves. This is a highly time-bound section that requires much muscle memory and hence students must not ignore it at any cost. Some important topics for sketching include:

  1. Human Anatomy, Movements, Run/Walk/Jump Cycles

  2. Animal forms, Nature drawings, Light and Shadow (Shading techniques)

  3. Forms both Organic and Geometric (Products, Free forms and Bio Design)

  4. Perspective Sketching (Indoor and Outdoor Scenarios)

  5. Product Sketching for Everyday Life (e.g. Iron, Mouse, etc.)

  6. Proportion and measurement (Relative proportions for all types of sketching)

The key is to start with the most fundamental shapes, such as lines, curves, ellipses, circles, squares, and cuboids. Warm-up exercises before sketching also prove to be useful to free the hand and remove constraints before sketching. Practice is key as that is the only memorization for sketching!

Strategy and Tips for UCEED 2026 Preparation

  1. Complete and thorough awareness of the UCEED Syllabus

  2. Apt knowledge of the exam pattern and marking scheme

  3. Collecting essential and reliable study materials

  4. Making a monthly, day-wise timetable and study plan

  5. Practice multiple sample question papers

  6. It is crucial to analyze the previous year’s question papers and get a thorough understanding of the UCEED Question Paper Analysis

  7. Sketching takes quite some time to master, especially with so many other topics, so it is important to go through much more detailed UCEED Preparation Tips.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What are some UCEED sketching tips?
  • For any type of sketch, students must get proportions, anatomy, and perspective drawing skills. 

  • Practice free-hand drawing as much as possible and take references from magazines, objects around, etc. 

  • Annotate sketches well

2. Is 3 months enough for UCEED?

With early preparation and consistency and, a keen understanding of the question paper, students can crack the UCEED exam in 6 months. It is a moderately difficult paper.

3. Does UCEED have a negative marking?

Yes, there is a negative marking in UCEED Part A, MSQs, and MCQs.

4. How to pass the UCEED exam?

To pass the UCEED exam, you should follow these tips:

  • Understand the UCEED exam pattern and syllabus and plan your study accordingly.

  • Solve previous years’ question papers, sample papers, and mock tests to familiarize yourself with the exam format.

  • Practice sketching, drawing, creativity, visualization, and problem-solving.

  • Revise all topics and concepts and make short notes or flashcards to help you remember important points.

5. What are some best books for UCEED NAT, MSQs, and MCQs?
  • R. S. Aggarwal Quantitative Aptitude 

  • Analytical Reasoning by M.K. Pandey

  • UCEED Previous year's papers by Ashok Goel and Arjun Kamal

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Questions related to UCEED

Have a question related to UCEED ?

Hello,

NIFT 2026 admission - Applications release around November–December 2025.

UCEED 2026- Registrations open around September–October 2025.

Pearl Academy - They have multiple admission cycles (Jan, April, June). Applications usually open by October 2025 for Jan cycle.

Keep checking official sites regularly since dates shift slightly every year.

Thank you!

Hello!

UCEED is a competitive exam for design aspirants, testing design aptitude, logical thinking, creativity, and visualisation skills. To improve your score out of 300, start by understanding the exam pattern—Part A (objective) and Part B (subjective). For Part A, practice reasoning, numerical aptitude, and environmental & social awareness questions. For Part B, focus on drawing, sketching, and presenting your ideas clearly. Solve past year UCEED papers and join online mock test series. Spend at least 2–3 hours daily practising creative problem-solving and sketching. Also, work on time management because the exam requires quick thinking.

Thank you for reading, and I wish you the best


Hello Akanksha,

For NID DAT 2026, your eligibility is established based on your born date as you are born on or after July 1st 2005. For UCEED 2026, your eligibility is dependent on your born date by category. You are eligible if you are OPEN/EWS/OBC-NCL category and born on or after October 1, 2001. If you are SC/ST/PwD category you must be born on or after October 1, 1996 in order to be eligible. Based on your born date of December 20th, 2006 for both NID DAT 2026 and UCEED 2026; you will be eligible.

The UCEED exam is conducted by IIT Bombay, and the previous year’s question papers  you can download the papers along with answer keys directly from the link given below :

https://design.careers360.com/articles/uceed-previous-year-question-papers

Thank you and all the best!


Currently, NSUT does not offer a B.Des. program. However, other institutes like IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, and IIITDM Jabalpur offer B.Des. through UCEED.

Expected UCEED Cutoffs (General Category):

IIT Bombay: Around Rank 14

IIT Delhi: Around Rank 35

IIITDM Jabalpur: Around Rank 165

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