A year-by-year breakdown of every CEED Part A topic from 2018 to 2026. Spatial Reasoning never declined — it peaked at 16 questions twice. Design Awareness is the most consistent topic in the paper. General Knowledge had 8 questions in 2018 and then essentially disappeared. Here is what the data says about preparing for CEED 2027.
CEED Part A is a 44-question paper that selects candidates for Master of Design programmes across IISc and the IITs. Because it sits at the postgraduate level, it assumes design literacy from day one. The questions expect you to recognise famous products, understand design movements, and apply spatial thinking under time pressure, not just reason from first principles.
That context matters for how you read the data below. CEED is not becoming more balanced the way UCEED has. It is becoming more concentrated around two topics: Spatial Reasoning and Design Awareness. Together, those two accounted for 52% of the 2026 paper. If you prepare for CEED the way you would prepare for UCEED, you will misallocate your time.
This guide is a breakdown of nine years of actual CEED Part A question data, topic by topic, so you can see exactly what changed and where to focus for CEED 2027.
The paper had 41 questions from 2018 to 2023, then grew to 44 from 2024 onwards (three extra MCQ questions added to Section 3). 2019 had 45 questions, which appears to be a one-year anomaly.
| Topic | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spatial Reasoning | 6 | 9 | 12 | 14 | 16 | 11 | 8 | 16 | 13 |
| Design Awareness | 6 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 10 |
| Visual Reasoning | 2 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 3 |
| Analytical Reasoning | 3 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 5 |
| Pattern Recognition | 2 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| Numerical Reasoning | 0 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| General Knowledge | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Observation | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Design History | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Language | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Typography | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Indian Culture | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Materials | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Colour Theory | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 41 | 45 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 41 | 44 | 44 | 44 |
Source: Roughworks, compiled from official CEED answer keys (2018-2026).
Practise by topic
Explore all CEED questions topic-wise
One of the most important things this data tells you: the decline of Spatial Reasoning in UCEED did not happen in CEED.
The UCEED story is well known — spatial peaked at 28 questions in 2019 and 2020, then fell steadily to 8 in 2026. CEED went the other direction. From 6 questions in 2018, it climbed to 12, 14, and then 16 in 2022. It dropped to 8 in 2024, which worried some students, then immediately bounced back to 16 in 2025 and settled at 13 in 2026.
CEED spatial is volatile, not declining. The 2024 dip looks like an outlier, not a trend.
The type of spatial questions in CEED also skews harder than UCEED. Expect multi-step transformations, orthographic projections from complex objects, and questions where you need to hold multiple views in mind simultaneously. These reward deep practice, not surface familiarity.
Quick Quiz
A solid cube of side 5 units is painted on all 6 faces, then cut into 125 unit cubes. How many unit cubes have no paint on any face?
No topic tells the story of CEED as clearly as Design Awareness. It has appeared in every single year from 2018 to 2026. It has never gone below 5 questions. And in 2026 it reached 10 questions, its highest count in nine years.
The trend is upward: 6, 7, 7, 5, 8, 9, 9, 7, 10.
This makes sense for a postgraduate design entrance exam. Students applying for M.Des programmes are expected to already have a working knowledge of design history, famous designers and their products, design organisations, and the broader field. CEED tests that you have been paying attention.
What Design Awareness covers in practice: iconic product designers and their works (Dieter Rams, Charles and Ray Eames, Achille Castiglioni, Arne Jacobsen), design movements (Bauhaus, Memphis, Modernism), famous logos and brand identities, industrial and product design milestones, and design institutions.
The difference between CEED and UCEED here is significant. UCEED Design Awareness had 0 questions in 2024 and came back with 7 in 2026 — a ghost-topic pattern. CEED Design Awareness has never been a ghost topic. It has been present every year. If you skip it, you are guaranteed to drop marks.
Quick Quiz
The Braun SK4 record player (1956), nicknamed 'Snow White's Coffin' for its transparent acrylic lid, was co-designed by Dieter Rams alongside which other designer?
Looking at both topics together reveals how dominant the CEED core really is.
In 2018, Spatial Reasoning and Design Awareness combined for 12 out of 41 questions: 29% of the paper. That is already significant.
By 2022, those two topics combined for 24 out of 41 questions: 59% of the paper. 2025 was 52%. 2026 was 52%.
In a 44-question exam, getting Spatial Reasoning and Design Awareness right gives you the foundation of the paper. Every other topic competes for the remaining 40 to 50%.
This is the clearest strategic signal CEED gives you. No other exam in the Indian design entrance landscape has this kind of topic concentration at the top. Prepare these two first, deeply, before spreading into other areas.
The most misleading data point in the entire nine-year CEED dataset is the 2018 General Knowledge count: 8 questions out of 41.
That is roughly 20% of the paper from a single topic. Students preparing in 2017 and 2018 would have had legitimate reason to treat GK as a top-three priority. Many coaching guides and study materials were written in that era.
What followed: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0.
General Knowledge fell off completely after 2018 and has shown no sign of returning. If your CEED study plan puts significant time into GK because your materials list it as important, those materials were built around a paper that stopped existing six years ago.
One session to understand what CEED GK questions looked like (science facts, geography, general design-adjacent awareness) is enough. Do not go further than that.
Analytical Reasoning peaked at 8 questions in 2023, its highest in nine years, then dropped to 2 in 2025 and sits at 5 in 2026. The count across nine years — 3, 7, 2, 3, 6, 8, 6, 2, 5 — does not follow a clear direction. It is consistently present but consistently unpredictable.
Visual Reasoning has a similar story with a more dramatic swing: 2, 4, 7, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10, 3. It peaked at 10 in 2025 then fell back to 3 in 2026. That is a 7-question swing in a single year, in a 44-question paper. The implication is that you cannot rely on Visual Reasoning to carry your score, but you also cannot afford to skip it.
Both topics reward timed practice more than any amount of theory. Students who have solved 50 or more past questions in each area develop the pattern recognition that makes these questions faster. That is the preparation.
In 2022, CEED Part A had questions from only 6 topics. Spatial Reasoning had 16, Design Awareness had 8, Analytical Reasoning had 6, Visual Reasoning had 5, Numerical Reasoning had 5, Pattern Recognition had 1.
That is 41 questions distributed across 6 categories, with the top two accounting for more than half the paper. There were zero questions in General Knowledge, Observation, Language, Typography, Design History, Indian Culture, Materials, and Colour Theory.
A student who had been tracking the data and prepared primarily for Spatial Reasoning and Design Awareness would have been perfectly positioned for 2022. A student who spread time evenly across 12 topics would have been over-prepared for 8 of them.
This is the extreme version of the CEED concentration pattern. It may not repeat exactly in 2027, but the direction it represents — fewer active topics, higher stakes on the top two — has stayed consistent.
Both Observation and Design History follow the same pattern in CEED that Indian Culture followed in UCEED. They show up, disappear for several years, then return.
Observation: 4 in 2018, 2 in 2019, 1 in 2020, then 0, 0, 0 in 2021-2023, then 3, 1, 3 in 2024-2026. It is back.
Design History: 4 in 2018, 2 in 2019, then essentially absent until 1 in 2023 and 1 in 2026. Given the return signals, it is worth covering the basics.
The preparation angle for both: Design History questions in CEED tend to focus on movements (Bauhaus, Art Deco, Memphis, Modernism) and key figures, not obscure dates. Observation questions test attention to visual detail and memory. Neither topic has ever been a major score carrier in CEED, but being caught without basic coverage when they show up with 3 or 4 questions is a preventable loss.
Quick Quiz
The Bauhaus school, which fundamentally shaped modern design education, was founded in 1919 in which German city?
Indian Culture in CEED follows a completely different pattern from the same topic in UCEED. Where UCEED had four consecutive years of zero Indian Culture questions before a sharp return, CEED has had almost exactly one question per year for nine years straight.
The counts: 1, 1, 1, 2, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1.
The single zero in 2022 is the only break in what is otherwise a clockwork one-question-per-year topic. This is probably the most predictable topic in the entire CEED paper. It is never going to make or break your score, but getting it right reliably costs very little preparation.
Expect questions about traditional crafts, textiles, folk art, or design-relevant geography. One session covering Indian textile traditions (Phulkari, Ikat, Madhubani, Kalamkari, Warli) and major craft forms is sufficient.
Typography in CEED has been inconsistent: 1, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1, 0, 2, 3. It was absent in 2022 and 2024, then jumped to 3 in 2026 — its highest count in nine years.
This mirrors the broader signal from Design Awareness: CEED is becoming more design-literacy focused, not less. Typography is part of that literacy. Knowing the difference between a serif and a sans-serif, understanding kerning and leading, and being able to identify well-known typefaces are the kinds of things a design postgraduate student is expected to know.
The preparation investment is modest. Two to three focused sessions cover everything CEED has tested: type anatomy, spacing terminology, font identification, and basic typographic principles.
Based on nine years of data, here is how to think about preparation time.
Tier 1 — Non-negotiable core:
Spatial Reasoning and Design Awareness. These two topics have together accounted for 39-59% of the paper across nine years and are trending upward in 2025 and 2026. If you are short on time, these are where it goes first.
Tier 2 — Consistent contributors:
Visual Reasoning, Analytical Reasoning, Numerical Reasoning, Pattern Recognition. All four have appeared in most years with meaningful counts, though all are volatile. Solid practice in each builds a reliable base across a significant portion of the remaining paper.
Tier 3 — Targeted coverage:
Observation, Typography, Design History, Indian Culture. All four have shown return signals in recent years. Observation and Typography both had 3 questions in 2026. Design History had 1. These are not skip topics.
Tier 4 — Awareness only:
General Knowledge, Language, Materials, Colour Theory. Low, declining, and largely absent from recent papers. One session to recognise the question type is sufficient.
The core difference comes down to this: UCEED is moving toward balance. CEED is moving toward concentration.
UCEED 2026 had no topic above 9 questions. CEED 2026 had Spatial Reasoning at 13 and Design Awareness at 10 — those two topics alone were over half the paper.
A student who prepares for CEED using a UCEED-style "cover everything equally" strategy will underperform on the two topics that matter most. A student who spends a disproportionate amount of time on Spatial Reasoning and Design Awareness while maintaining coverage across the supporting topics will be well positioned.
This is the argument the nine-year data makes, and it has been consistent enough across recent papers to take seriously.
Ready to practise?
Apply what you learned with CEED past year questions.