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Paper 2A B.Arch and Paper 2B B.Planning
What the exam is, when to apply, what to study and what to carry, with a quick check of whether architecture or planning suits your child. Written for students and for the parents who sign the form.
Which paper is yours?
Paper 2A: B.Arch
Bachelor of Architecture
Mathematics (CBT), Aptitude (CBT) and a Drawing Test on paper
Good fit: Students who like to sketch and design, think in 3D and want to become architects.
77 questions, 400 marksPaper 2B: B.Planning
Bachelor of Planning
Mathematics, Aptitude and Planning-based questions, all on the computer
Good fit: Students who care about cities, transport, land use and policy, and prefer reading and reasoning to drawing.
100 questions, 400 marksBoth papers
B.Arch and B.Planning
One sitting of 3 hours 30 minutes
Good fit: Students who are open to either course and can manage the extra hour.
One form, higher feeChoose 2A (B.Arch) if
- you sketch, doodle or build things without being asked
- you can imagine a shape from another side
- you enjoy buildings, spaces and how they feel
- you can commit to daily drawing practice
Choose 2B (B.Planning) if
- you notice traffic, water, housing and how cities grow
- you like maps, data, reading and debate
- you prefer reasoning to drawing
- you are curious about policy and public systems
Take both if
- you honestly like both sets of ideas
- you can handle 3 hours 30 minutes
- you will give the Drawing Test real practice
- your family accepts the higher fee
Deadlines, with a live countdown
Session 1 (January 2027)
| Application form | 24 October to 22 November 2026, up to 11:50 pm |
| Fee payment | Last day 22 November 2026, up to 11:50 pm |
| With late fee of ₹500 | 23 to 26 November 2026, up to 11:50 pm |
| Corrections | 27 to 29 November 2026, up to 11:50 pm |
| City intimation slip | 30 December 2026 |
| Admit card | 13 January 2027 |
| Exam days | 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 28 January 2027 |
Session 2 (April 2027)
| Application form | 5 January to 3 February 2027, up to 11:50 pm |
| Fee payment | Last day 3 February 2027, up to 11:50 pm |
| With late fee of ₹500 | 4 to 7 February 2027, up to 11:50 pm |
| Corrections | 8 to 10 February 2027, up to 11:50 pm |
| City intimation slip | 12 March 2027 |
| Admit card | 25 March 2027 |
| Exam days | 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 April 2027 |
The bulletin gives these dates for the whole of JEE (Main). The exact day, shift and city for Paper 2A and Paper 2B are printed on your admit card. NTA publishes the answer key and your recorded response for challenges on its website after each session.
Pattern, marks and time
| Part | Paper 2A: B.Arch | Paper 2B: B.Planning |
|---|---|---|
| Part I: Mathematics | 20 MCQs (Section A) + 5 numerical-value questions (Section B), 100 marks | Same: 20 MCQs + 5 numerical-value questions, 100 marks |
| Part II: Aptitude Test | 50 MCQs, 200 marks | Same: 50 MCQs, 200 marks |
| Part III | Drawing Test: 2 questions on an A4 drawing sheet, 100 marks, pen and paper | Planning-based questions: 25 MCQs, 100 marks, on the computer |
| Total | 77 questions, 400 marks | 100 questions, 400 marks |
| Mode | Parts I and II on the computer; Part III offline on paper | All three parts on the computer |
Marking
| Correct MCQ or numerical answer | +4 |
| Wrong answer | −1 (both MCQs and numerical-value questions) |
| Unanswered or marked for review without an answer | 0 |
| Drawing Test (2A only) | Two questions evaluated out of 100 marks. The bulletin does not list a negative mark for it. |
Time
| Paper 2A or 2B alone | 3 hours 4 hours for candidates entitled to a scribe |
| 2A and 2B together | 3 hours 30 minutes 4 hours 40 minutes for candidates entitled to a scribe |
| Shift times (3 hours) | 9:00 am to 12:00 noon, or 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm IST |
| Shift times (3.5 hours) | 9:00 am to 12:30 pm, or 3:00 pm to 6:30 pm IST |
- Section B (numerical): you type an integer using the on-screen keypad. The answer is rounded off to the nearest integer.
- Aptitude is half the paper (200 of 400). Mathematics is a quarter. Many students over-invest in mathematics.
- If a question has more than one correct option, only those who marked a correct option get +4. If a question is dropped, every candidate in that shift gets full marks for it.
- Overall merit joins the NTA scores of every shift of both sessions. If you sit both sessions, the better score counts.
- Ties are broken in this order: Mathematics score, then Aptitude score, then Drawing score (2A) or Planning score (2B), then the proportion of wrong to right answers.
Fees, per session
Per session. Processing charges and GST are extra. A late fee of ₹500 applies to every category. Adding Paper 1 (B.E. or B.Tech) to a Paper 2 uses the same combined rows. Third-gender candidates pay the SC/ST rate.
Who can apply
| Class 12 year | Passed Class 12 or equivalent in 2025 or 2026, or appearing in 2027. Candidates who passed in 2024 or earlier are not eligible for JEE (Main) 2027. |
| Age | NTA sets no age limit. Individual institutes may. |
| Qualifying boards | CBSE, CISCE, state boards, intermediate or pre-university, NIOS with five subjects, IB, Cambridge A level, and other boards NTA lists in Chapter 3 of the bulletin. |
| Admission rules are separate | NTA runs the test only. Each institute and the Council of Architecture set subject and mark conditions for B.Arch, and each planning school sets its own. Check the institute before you pay for anything. |
What to study
Mathematics and the aptitude test are common to both papers. The third part differs.
Mathematics is the same 14 units for 2A and 2B. The only difference in the syllabus text is that Paper 2A lists areas under "simple curves in standard forms" and Paper 2B says "simple curves".
Unit 1: awareness and visualising
- Awareness of persons, buildings, materials, objects and textures related to architecture and the built environment
- Visualising three-dimensional objects from two-dimensional drawings
- Visualising different sides of three-dimensional objects
- Analytical reasoning and mental ability: visual, numerical and verbal
How to prepare: Read about famous buildings and architects, notice materials around you, and practise reasoning puzzles daily.
Unit 2: three-dimensional perception
- Scale and proportion of objects, building forms and elements
- Colour, texture, harmony and contrast
- Designing and drawing geometrical or abstract shapes and patterns in pencil
- Transforming forms in 2D and 3D: union, subtraction, rotation, development of surfaces and volumes
- Plans, elevations and 3D views of objects; making 2D and 3D compositions from given shapes
How to prepare: Build small models from paper, draw top, front and side views of everyday objects, and rotate shapes in your head.
What you will sketch
- Sketching scenes and activities from memory: urban life (public spaces, markets, festivals, street scenes, monuments, recreation spaces)
- Landscape: riverfronts, jungle, gardens, trees, plants
- Rural life
Exam-day rules
- Done offline on an A4 drawing sheet.
- Bring your own geometry box, pencils, erasers, and colour pencils or crayons.
- Water colours are not allowed on the sheet.
- Two questions are evaluated out of 100 marks. NTA adds the digitally evaluated marks to your total.
| Unit 1: general awareness | General knowledge about prominent cities, development issues, government programmes. |
| Unit 2: social sciences | Nationalism and nationalism in India, the pre-modern world, the 19th-century global economy, colonialism and colonial cities, industrialisation, resources and development (agriculture, water, minerals, industries, national economy), human settlements; power-sharing, federalism, political parties, democracy, the Constitution of India; economic sectors, globalisation, the idea of development, poverty; population structure, social exclusion and inequality, urbanisation, rural development. |
| Unit 3: thinking skills | Comprehension of an unseen passage; map-reading (scale, distance, direction, area); critical reasoning; reading charts, graphs and tables; basic statistics and quantitative reasoning. |
Colleges under this scheme
These 18 institutes admitted B.Arch or B.Planning students through JoSAA in 2025. Ranks are last year’s OPEN range: use them to see the level, not to predict.
Schools of Planning and Architecture
Centrally funded, the only institutes in this list that offer both B.Arch and B.Planning at all-India level.SPA New Delhi
New Delhi, DelhiSPA Bhopal
Bhopal, Madhya PradeshSPA Vijayawada
Vijayawada, Andhra PradeshNational Institutes of Technology
Home-state (HS) seats and other-state (OS) seats have separate ranks.NIT Calicut
Calicut, KeralaNIT Tiruchirappalli
Tiruchirappalli, Tamil NaduVNIT Nagpur
Nagpur, MaharashtraNIT Kurukshetra
Kurukshetra, HaryanaMNIT Jaipur
Jaipur, RajasthanNIT Rourkela
Rourkela, OdishaNIT Hamirpur
Hamirpur, Himachal PradeshMANIT Bhopal
Bhopal, Madhya PradeshNIT Raipur
Raipur, ChhattisgarhNIT Patna
Patna, BiharOther JoSAA institutes
Technical institutes and universities that took part in JoSAA 2025.IIEST Shibpur
Howrah, West BengalSMVD University
Katra, Jammu and KashmirBIT Mesra
Ranchi, JharkhandMizoram University
Aizawl, MizoramIUST Kashmir
Awantipora, Jammu and KashmirNo college matches. Try another word.
Source: the JoSAA 2025 opening and closing rank file for rounds 1 to 6, which the portal already holds. Figures are the lowest opening rank and the highest closing rank across rounds for OPEN, gender-neutral seats on the Paper 2 rank list, so they show the range, not a prediction. Other categories and gender-only seats have their own ranks. Seats, courses and ranks change every year; read the JoSAA 2027 brochure when it appears.
- IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee and IIT (BHU) Varanasi offer B.Arch through JEE Advanced and the Architecture Aptitude Test (AAT), not through Paper 2.
- Many state governments, deemed universities and private colleges admit to B.Arch through NATA or through JEE Main Paper 2, and set their own dates and rules. Check each college and see our NATA page.
- Seat counts are not in this file, so the list shows ranks only.
Is this a good path for you?
Two short parts. First rate twelve statements, then answer twelve mini-questions on the kind of thinking this exam tests. Your answers stay on this page and are not sent anywhere.
Part 1: Interest check (3 minutes)
0 = not me, 1 = a little, 2 = mostly, 3 = very much me.
1. I like sketching or doodling even when no one asks me to.
2. I notice how buildings, bridges and streets look and feel.
3. I enjoy building models, Lego, paper craft or craft work.
4. I can imagine how an object looks from the back or the top.
5. I enjoy solving maths puzzles and getting an exact answer.
6. I like finding patterns in numbers, shapes or tables.
7. I wonder why some neighbourhoods are crowded or have poor roads.
8. I like reading maps, charts or data about cities and people.
9. I follow news about cities, housing, water, transport or government schemes.
10. I enjoy reading a passage and answering questions on it.
11. I would rather finish a drawing than write an essay.
12. I like debating how public money should be spent.
Part 2: Mini aptitude (about 10 minutes)
Pick one answer per question, then press Check my answers. Wrong answers show why.
A solid cube is painted red on all faces and cut into 27 equal small cubes (3 × 3 × 3). How many small cubes have exactly two red faces?
A triangular prism has how many faces in all?
A cylinder standing on its circular base is seen from directly above. The view is:
A plan is drawn to a scale of 1 : 500. A wall measures 3.2 cm on the plan. Its real length is:
Find the next number: 2, 6, 12, 20, 30, ?
Blueprint is to building as score is to:
Which material, made by heating limestone with clay and grinding the result, is the binder in concrete?
In the standard colour wheel, the complement of blue is:
On a map 1 cm stands for 2 km. A rectangular park measures 3 cm × 2 cm on the map. Its real area is:
A city grew from 40 lakh to 46 lakh people in ten years. The growth was:
Why do planners encourage mixed land use (homes, shops and offices close together)?
The slope of the line 2x + 3y = 6 is:
These twelve items were written by EduAakashaA for this page, in the style of the syllabus units. They are not NTA questions. For NTA's own computer-based practice, use the Test Practice Centre at nta.ac.in/Quiz and check which exam and paper it offers. Open NTA practice.
Part 3: One drawing, ten minutes (for 2A)
Take a plain A4 sheet and a pencil. Sketch a busy street market on a festival evening from memory. Show at least three people, one building and something in the foreground. Then ask yourself:
- Did the sketch look balanced, with a near and a far part?
- Did the people look the right size next to the building?
- Did I enjoy it, or did I watch the clock?
If you enjoyed it and the sizes looked right, Paper 2A suits you. If it felt like a chore, look closely at Paper 2B. This is a self-check, not a score.
A simple preparation plan
The dates come from NTA. The advice on what to do in each period is ours, not an NTA rule.
| Now to 22 Nov | Decide 2A, 2B or both. Collect documents. Submit the form. Do not wait for the last day. |
| Dec | Finish the syllabus read-through. Start a daily 20-minute sketch (2A) or newspaper habit (2B). Take the NTA practice test once to learn the screen. |
| Early Jan | Mixed practice: 25 maths questions, 25 aptitude questions, one sketch or one planning set, per day. Download the admit card on 13 Jan. |
| 20 to 28 Jan | Session 1. Afterwards, review the answer key and your response sheet. Note which units cost you marks. |
| Feb | Apply for Session 2 (5 Jan to 3 Feb). Fix the weakest units. Do three full timed papers. |
| March to April | Admit card on 25 March. Two sketching sessions a week at exam length. Session 2 runs 2 to 7 April. |
What to know before you pay and sign
Time and cost
One form covers both papers. Fees are per session and rise sharply for a centre outside India. Add GST and processing charges to the budget.
The drawing kit
Buy the geometry box, pencils, erasers and colour pencils early so your child practises with the same tools. No water colours.
Two chances
Session 1 is a rehearsal, Session 2 is the improvement. NTA uses the better score.
What to ask schools
Whether the institute needs another test or portfolio, which conditions the Council of Architecture sets, and when counselling opens. NTA does not run counselling.
How to help
Protect sleep, ask to see this week's sketches, and read the answer key together after each mock.
Do not panic
Aptitude is half the marks. A student weaker in mathematics can still score well by being strong in aptitude and drawing or planning.
Common questions
Each answer is tagged: Official source Check with the institute EduAakashaA advice
Q01Do I need to apply separately for 2A and 2B?
No. It is one application form. You choose Paper 2A, Paper 2B, or both, and the fee depends on the choice.
Q02Is the Drawing Test on the computer?
No. Parts I and II of Paper 2A are on the computer. Part III, the Drawing Test, is on paper using an A4 drawing sheet.
Q03What can I carry for drawing?
Your own geometry box set, pencils, erasers and colour pencils or crayons. Water colours are not allowed on the sheet.
Q04Is there negative marking?
Yes. +4 for a correct answer and −1 for a wrong answer, in both MCQs and numerical-value questions. The Drawing Test is marked out of 100.
Q05How long is the exam?
3 hours for one paper, 3 hours 30 minutes if you take both 2A and 2B in one sitting.
Q06If I appear in both sessions, which score counts?
The better of your JEE (Main) 2027 NTA scores is used for ranking.
Q07Is the syllabus the same as for Paper 1?
No. Paper 2 has its own syllabus: 14 units of mathematics (no physics or chemistry), an aptitude test, and either a drawing test or planning-based questions.
Q08Is NATA needed as well?
NTA does not decide this. Many institutes accept either NATA or JEE Main Paper 2 for B.Arch, but rules differ by institute and by counselling. Check the institute and see our NATA page.
Q09Which seats does the Paper 2 rank open?
The bulletin says Paper 2 is for admission to B.Arch and B.Planning courses in the country. Counselling bodies publish their own rules and seat lists, so read their brochure for 2027 when it appears.
Q10Can I take only Paper 1 and Paper 2A?
Yes. The bulletin lists the combinations Paper 1 with 2A, Paper 1 with 2B, Paper 1 with both, or 2A with 2B. Each has its own fee row.
Q11How should a student weak at drawing prepare?
Start with simple shapes, perspective and proportion, 20 minutes a day, from memory and from real scenes. Ask a mentor to review a weekly sheet. If drawing still feels like a chore after a month, consider Paper 2B.
Q12What if my city intimation slip shows a far city?
Write to NTA through the helpline listed on the bulletin. Do not change your exam plan without a reply in writing.
Where this came from
| NTA Information Bulletin, JEE (Main) 2027 | Dates, fees, pattern, marking, timing, drawing-kit rules (Chapters 1, 2 and 8) |
| NTA syllabus for JEE (Main) 2027, Paper 2A and 2B pages | Mathematics, Aptitude, Drawing and Planning syllabus |
| NTA Test Practice Centre, nta.ac.in/Quiz | Computer-based practice screen (the page lists no Paper 2 items) |
Prepared 1 November 2026 with AI assistance and checked against the documents above. NTA may change dates, fees or rules after that date, and institutes set their own admission conditions. Confirm everything on jeemain.nta.nic.in before acting. This is guidance, not legal advice. EduAakashaA is not affiliated with NTA.
Talk to a counsellor about B.Arch or B.Planning
We can look at your child’s sketches, marks and interests, and help you choose between 2A, 2B and both. Mon to Fri 9:00 to 22:00, Sat and Sun 9:00 to 16:00 IST.
Members are added to the EduAakashaA Members Group, where counsellors and experienced parents answer questions like these.