Basque PAU Technical Drawing II

You get a printed statement, usually with several optional problems, and blank drawing paper. You choose, construct with instruments, and hand in the sheet. Solutions are judged on geometric correctness, construction traces and clarity, so leave auxiliary lines visible rather than erasing everything.

These details change between calls, so the official Basque access authority publishes the current structure and duration on its website. Check the paper for your year before planning your timing; never rely on a figure remembered from an older session.

The content matches the second-year syllabus, but the pressure is different: no partial credit for good intentions, and constructions must be finished. Students who can draw the standard tangency, conic and section exercises without hesitation usually find the level manageable; those who only recognise them struggle.

Access-exam rules, including resits and grade validity, are set by the official body and can change, so confirm on its site. As a rule, plan on the possibility of sitting again in a later call and keep your corrected drawings as revision material.

Start with plane geometry and tangencies, because they train compass accuracy used everywhere else. Then dihedral projection of point, line and plane, then true magnitudes, then solids and sections. Leave axonometric and normalised drawing for the middle, and finish with timed mixed problems.

Faint or sketchy lines, missing construction arcs, unlabelled points, wrong scale, and unfinished conic or section work. Another frequent loss is drawing the answer without showing how it was obtained. Examiners must be able to verify the construction, so annotate as you go.

Yes, both appear in the syllabus. Dihedral is the backbone and carries most weight in practice; axonometric and conical representation are smaller blocks but are usually worth a whole optional problem, so do not skip them entirely.

A compass with a sharp lead, two set squares, a 30 cm ruler, a sharp 2H pencil for construction and a softer one for final lines, plus an eraser and a scale. Practise with exactly the set you will bring, so your line weights are already trained.

Do them closed-book and timed, then mark your own work against the geometric conditions: is the tangency exact, is the section complete, is the true magnitude correct? Keep an error log by topic and redo the failed constructions a week later until they are automatic.