Galicia PAU Technical Drawing Applied to Plastic Arts and Design II

The Galician public universities through the Comisión Interuniversitaria de Galicia (CIUG). CIUG publishes the syllabus, the exam structure, the model papers and the marking criteria for each call at ciug.gal. No private site, including this one, has any official role; use CIUG documents for anything binding.

It is a graphic paper, not a pure multiple-choice test. Expect a choice of exercises combining short theoretical answers with constructions you draw to scale on the answer sheet: a plane geometry construction, dihedral views of a solid, an axonometric or perspective view, and questions on normalisation, typography or design. The exact number of options and their weighting are fixed by CIUG each year.

Those figures change between calls and are set officially, so do not rely on second-hand numbers. Check the current CIUG documentation for the duration, the number of exercises and the marking scheme. Your final access grade also depends on how the subject is weighted for the degree you want, which is published by each university.

Yes, in practice you can sit the PAU in successive calls within the rules set by the Galician university system, and the general access mark can be improved. The specific conditions, limits and how the best mark is kept are defined officially, so confirm them in the current CIUG regulations before planning a resit.

Manual drawing skill helps but is not sufficient. The usual losses come from imprecise construction, missing auxiliary lines, wrong line weights, forgotten dimensioning rules or an incorrect scale. Candidates who draw beautifully but ignore standardisation conventions routinely score below careful candidates with average hand skills.

Start with plane geometry and the conventions of line, scale and dimensioning, because every later exercise depends on them. Then dihedral projection, then axonometric and perspective, then the more descriptive blocks: typography and visual communication, design methodology, colour and materials, and CAD. Practise each block with timed drawings rather than reading theory alone.

Running out of time on one construction, drawing freehand instead of constructing, mixing scales on one sheet, leaving construction lines that should be faint or omitting ones that should be visible, and misreading the statement. Many candidates also lose easy marks on terminology, dimensioning symbols and typographic anatomy they never revised.

The digital tools block is a small part of the subject, and the exam is drawn by hand on paper. You should understand basic CAD concepts, file and layer logic and what CAD changes in a design workflow, but you will not be asked to operate software in the exam room. Check the CIUG syllabus for the exact scope.

Practise with what you will actually use: a drawing board or firm surface, set squares, compass, pencils of two or three hardnesses, an eraser, and a scale ruler. Rehearse with the same tools under timed conditions so that your construction speed and line quality are realistic for the exam room.