Showing posts with label NATA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATA. Show all posts

30 May 2018

NATA Exam - General Aptitude Free Study materials


1. Mathematics and Geometric Aptitude


The syllabus of NATA exam includes mathematics as well as Aptitude. Fortunately, you must note that mathematics syllabus is actually your school/college textbooks. So, I'm not including mathematics topics here while I covered the General Aptitude part at length. I will try to cover Part B (drawing part) in future posts. But if you couldn't find materials or textbooks for maths, let me know in the comment, I will search and add a textbook.

What to start, how to learn the basics of design aptitude? 
How to solve design aptitude, non-verbal, and Ability questions with examples


PART 16


Maths Basics for non-math background design aspirants



How to count no. of surfaces in given solids



Graphics - Front, top, side views, Isometric projections etc
A very quick and good intro to Engineering Drawing

 Check till Page 28 - Engineering Graphics basics

 For further exercise and Practice


Some very good video tutorials that helps you with Solid transformations


source : Maths Online


source : Godcast


Orthographic projection examples

Isometric view tutorial

Other downloadable materials
Basic Geometry study (Just for reference) -

2. Nonverbal, Reasoning and Abstract Tests

Odd man out series exercises
Some more  odd man out series exercises

3. Architectural related General Aptitude


Roofing, Flooring, Tiling, Building Materials

 Floor tiles types PDF

Floor types and treatments - 

With pictures - types of flooring and their advantages

Types of flooring and material uses 

Flooring types used in India 

Flooring materials

Roofing types and materials

7 best roofing materials 

Wikipedia list of roofing material 

Building materials for different climate conditions - 

 Properties of Building materials 

Types of construction bonds 

Online - Choosing different building materials for different climate 


 Famous Buildings, Architectural styles, constructions etc.

 PDF - NCERT collection of state wise architecture in India 

PDF - A detailed list of temples, architectural styles with images 

List of famous temples in India 

Wikipedia detailed list of Hindu temples (overview during free time) -

Era wise Indian architecture (briefly go)

PDF of 100 famous landmarks around the world with images 

Most iconic buildings around the world 

100 most famous landmarks around the world

Another list of famous buildiings

The seven wonders of ancient, medieval, contemporary and modern worlds 

Wonders of the world

 Architectural styles timeline (PDF) 

Classical order in Architecture 

20 famous historical sites in India

Free time study 

History of Architecture

Glossery of Architectural terms

Go in free time - 100 famous works of creative sculpture and statues around the world - 

Terms and Texture

 Construction Materials - Quickly overview this book. Only study the part listed here - Timeline, Cultural and Material Context, Application, Grand Master

Texture in wikipedia 

Good guide on Texture in Architecture 

Slideshare presentation on Texture 

Color and pattern in Texture with basic terminology 

Important terms - Architecture Elements and Principles


Free time study and for future reference - Detailed Notes on Architecture



For a list of Famous Architects - check the end of this page to get the list

 famous artists/painters with their pics 

Indian cultural GA

General Topics

Learn about - Indian epigraphy history

 Learn about - Famous inscription in India

 Learn more about - Pica in wiki page

4. English and Verbal Reasoning



Sentetnce Correction and Completions
Vocabulary Study Materials 

A good PDF on Vocabulary (Synonyms, Antonyms, Analogies, Reading comprehension, sentence completion, right word etc.) 

India GK online Practice

5. Sketching/Drawing

The following links might help you teach/learn on how to draw from memory/imagination

Here is a blog with few tips on how to draw from memory 


Leisure time study

Superb book for learning sketching techniques and different facets of design (including perspective, shadowing, shading, texture, architectural facts etc) - Design drawing by Francis D.K.Ching

A (very famous) complete pdf book "Basic Rendering" from Robert W.Gill, which covers most of the rendering topics including perspective projections (For those wishing to learn sketching/rendering)

(More drawing related materials would be added soon)

Disclaimer: The materials shared here are a collection of PDFs and online resources collected from the internet to ease your study process. The topics chosen are purely based on the analysis of the sample previous papers and may not include 100% topics. 


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15 January 2016

Improve your imagination and learn to work with solid shapes



Hello ,

In-spite of including many online resources for helping you learn about math solid geometry and their manipulation, I'm getting a number of comments on how to solve them; especially the question "unfolding of solids". So, in this post, I've covered their basics and will try to make you understand the process in a simpler way for your easy understanding  - by considering and elaborating the process for some examples. I will begin with basics and then move to the topic 'How to analyse/visualize unfolding by imagination' at the end of this session.

Before that, here are my recent videos, uploaded in 2020, on 

What to start, How to learn the basics? 

How to solve design aptitude, non-verbal, and Ability questions with examples



PART 2


3D solid in different views


Math solid shapes are usually viewed best in isometric drawings. View which the solid is usually 30 degree inclined with the horizontal as shown in the sample picture below are usually isometrics. They are best examples of 3D because of solid being represented in 3 co-ordinate directions.


The four common projection we come across in drawing or Engg. graphics are - front view, left side view, right side view, top view. Although bottom view is there, but it has not much significance coz  most of the times, it will be a single plane surface shape.

For your additional info, let me add other types of views as taken from Wiki (note: the list includes photography views too!)
  • Bird's-eye view
  • 2.5D
  • Cross section
  • Cutaway drawing
  • Exploded view drawing
  • Fisheye lens
  • Panorama
  • Worm's-eye view
  • Zoom lens


Now, consider a solid shape (first angle projection), and when they are unfolded, you can get the following transformations as shown below.


unfolding of the first angle geometry


unfolded views


Ok, above are some basics, now let me add an example that I drew personally (in color) for your better understanding, the solid has been rotated in different directions for you to realize how it gets oriented. Also, it's important that you should note the continuation or break of surfaces in every view.



Figure also shows the direction of view, which I consider as front instead of our regular way of taking arrow in left! The following set of figures shows the same solid viewed in different 3D positions. Note that any black surface that you might see in the pics are just their shadows and has nothing to do with actual solid.





Now, the front view!


right side view is shown below, notice that the yellow box on top of the rectangular box covers the view of the blue triangle and so the triangle won't appear from left side.


Below figure shows the backside view. Observe how the view is similar to front view except the swapping of positions of the blue and yellow positions. This is not always true but for this specific geometric shape.


Below figure shows the left side view (little distorted). Actually the blue triangle width and the yellow square/retangle width are of same size and so they must lie in the same line. But because of little distortion while making the picture, it turned little. Hope you understood and don't get confused.


Ok, now that we have seen some basics, we will move to solving the question "Unfolding of solid shape" by taking an example.

Unfolding solid shapes 


Below image shows the example that I considered with unique alphabets for each surface - for easy identification. I also included back view that depicts clearly the visible surfaces, such that both the views covered all the surfaces except the bottom surface, which I think is not necessary to show here as you can easily assume that.


(Note: You may want to click the image for enlarged view or to download)

Now, let's say I unfolded the surface with tag 'A', which when unfolded will assume the below shape. A is unfolded from vertical position to the horizontal position by rotating towards us as shown by the arrow in the image below (just like opening the front door of a box).



Unfold B now from vertical position to the horizontal position by rotating to the right as shown in the below image. (Note: You can unfold in any order, it really doesn't matter, I took this way. But if in exam they show options in unfolded view, then you may have to put extra effort in determining which way they unfolded. If you understand the way I proceed here, then it will be easy to identify any unfolding!)



Now, I will unfold both E and D surfaces together to vertical plane as indicated by arrow in the below image. 


In the above two images, note a line tagged 'p' which will actually not be a line when A and B are unfolded but an empty space, I just included there for your visualization, in the next image, I removed that to show you how in actual the solid looks when the surfaces A and B are removed. 


Now, I unfold surfaces C and F as shown in the below picture. C to the right and F to the back (indicated by arrows in the image).


Now, I'm interested in bringing all the surfaces to the ground. I mean make them flat/plain by unwrapping as indicated in the below image.


Finally, to put together, and when viewed from top, the unfolded solid looks like below



The above is only one possibility, like I mentioned there are many possibilities, I took time to draw some possibilities as I showed in the below images, can you try yourself to make some more if you get free time ? I bet you can, if you understood the above steps :)






How to count no. of surfaces in given solids


I hope you enjoyed this, as well as understood how to deal with similar questions. I'm expecting your imaginative skills to be better from now especially when dealing with solid shapes and manipulations. 

Good luck :)


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