Preparation Tips for NATA 2019

National Aptitude Test in Architecture (NATA) is an exam conducted by the Council of Architecture (COA) on a national level. This exam is taken by the students who want to apply for the Architecture programs in colleges around the country. There are different preparation steps one must take while they have applied for the exam.

Preparation Tips

Before starting anything it is important that the candidates know the pattern of the exam. After that they can start preparing accordingly. One has to solve various question papers from the previous years and practice for the drawing text. One has to keep trying different questions to not miss out on any. One must assess their own strength and work on their weaknesses.

Syllabus and Pattern

There are two papers namely Paper 1 which consists of General Aptitude and Mathematics and Paper 2 which consists of Drawing Test. The difficulty level for the questions is moderate but the students have to be careful. A total of 62 questions are there and the exam is conducted on an offline medium. The total duration of the exam is of 3 hours. 

General Aptitude and Mathematics

This paper checks the candidate’s general aptitude and mental ability. The questions generally cover the syllabus from one’s 10^th to 12^th books in case of Mathematics. The question paper consists of objective type questions with a total of 90 minutes and 60 questions and 120 Marks.

• General Aptitude: Candidates should know this paper would assess their perception, observation, imagination and creativity combined with architectural consciousness. The major portions covered are Objects, Interpretation of pictorial compositions, Visualizing 3D objects from 2D drawing, logical operations like and, or, implies, contradiction and contra positive.
• Mathematics: This checks the candidates’ understanding of Mathematics. Summation of first n-terms of series ∑n, ∑n²,∑n3; Arithmetic/Geometric series, General properties, Matrices, transpose of a matrix, minor, cofactor, finding area of a triangle, Trigonometric functions, Coordinate geometry, 3-Dimensional Co-ordinate geometry, Theory of Calculus, Application of Calculus, Permutation and combination, Permutation of n things taken r at a time (r ≤ n), Statistics and Probability are some major portions that one can focus on.

Drawing Test

The Paper 2 or the drawing test judges the sketching, creative and innovative ability of a candidate. It is taken over the offline medium and in paper-pencil mode. A total of 2 questions are asked for this exam, each carrying 40 marks. Candidates are allotted 90 minutes for this paper. Since it is a drawing exam there is no defined syllabus for this Paper. One can practice with the sample papers from previous years for improving their hands-on skills. One should know how to sketch an object in a proportionate manner which looks visually appealing. The work of light and shadow needs to be minutely focused on since it covers some areas where the test paper checkers would be strict. Perspective drawing is one of the important types along with Geometric composition of different shapes, buildings, elements and aesthetics. Colour composition and contrast of objects should be studied well.

These tips can be used by the candidates if they are willing to apply for this particular exam. They have to remember the whole exam is based on how creative and open-minded they can be.