The only thing you can know in advance
Everything about A3 is uncertain except one measurement. You do not know the forms, the count, the brief, or the code on your paper. You do know the base: a foam sheet, 15 centimetres by 20. That single certainty is worth more preparation than anything else in the question, and almost nobody gives it any.
It is a field, not a shelf
There is a difference between standing objects on a surface and composing within a field, and it shows immediately in the photograph.
A shelf is neutral. Things sit on it. Their relationship is to each other and the surface is just what stops them falling.
A field is active. It has a long axis and a short axis — 20 cm one way, 15 the other, which is not square and the difference matters. It has four corners, which are the strongest and most dangerous positions on it. It has edges, which either get engaged or ignored. And it has a front, because the photography is directional.
Once you see the base as a field, questions arise that never occur to someone using it as a shelf. Does my composition run with the long axis or across it? Does it acknowledge that the base is a rectangle at all, or would it look identical on a square? Am I using the corners, or avoiding them by accident?
The long axis is a decision you are making anyway
A 15 x 20 base is a 4:3 rectangle, and a rectangle has an argument in it.
Run your composition along the long axis and you get a spread, a sequence, something that reads as a street or a row or a progression. Run it across the short axis and you get compression, a composition that fills the depth and reads frontally. Run it diagonally and you get the longest dimension available on the base — corner to corner is about 25 cm — plus an inherent tension, because a diagonal is in disagreement with its frame.
None of those is correct. All three are decisions. What is not a decision is arriving at one because you started gluing before you looked at the base — which is what happens when the base is a shelf.
One practical note: the diagonal is the most interesting and the riskiest. It photographs beautifully from the obliques and can read as chaotic head-on. If you take it, take it deliberately.
Edges, corners, and the tyranny of the middle
Watch enough candidates and a pattern appears: they build in the middle and leave a rim of empty base all round, like a plinth. It is a safety behaviour and it costs marks.
The centre is the least interesting part of a rectangle. It is where you put something when you have not decided anything — it commits to no axis, engages no edge, and turns the base's proportion into wasted paper. A composition that hugs the centre reads as timid because it is timid: it is what you build when you are trying not to be wrong.
The corners are the opposite: strong, and easy to overuse. A form in a corner is anchored and emphatic. Two forms in opposite corners set up a diagonal conversation across the whole field. Four forms in four corners is a table, not a composition.
The edges are the most underused resource. A mass that runs to an edge changes the reading of the base entirely — it stops being a plinth the composition sits on and becomes part of the composition. That is usually the move that turns a timid attempt into a confident one, and it costs nothing but the decision to make it.
The rules behind this
Sourced to the official brochure rather than restated here, so there is one place to correct when the Council revises it.
The A3 foam kit is supplied at the centre. You do not bring one, and you cannot know its contents in advance.
The question paper carries a KIT CODE (D1, D2, D3...) and the invigilator issues the matching kit: a set of 3D forms made of foam plus a 15cm x 20cm foam base sheet. Glue is provided. The finished model is photographed at the centre in three views and uploaded.
Read this carefully: Consequence worth stating plainly: A3 cannot be rehearsed as an artefact, only as a capability. Anyone selling 'the NATA foam kit' is selling a proxy.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
Part A is three questions: A1 Composition and Colour (25), A2 Sketching and Composition in Black and White (25), A3 3D Composition (30).
Eighty marks across three questions means each is worth roughly 13% of the whole exam. There is no salvaging a bad question by volume, the way a 50-question paper allows.
Source · verified 2026-07-16
What almost everyone believes
“The base is just what I build on. What matters is the composition itself.”
The base is the composition's frame, and the only element of the question you can know before the day. Ignoring it is throwing away your one certainty.
A 15 x 20 sheet is a 4:3 rectangle with a long axis, corners, edges and a front. Every composition either engages that geometry or accidentally ignores it, and the photographs make the difference obvious. Candidates who treat it as a shelf reliably build in the middle with a rim of dead foam around the edge — the tell of someone who never made a decision about the field they were given. It is also the one thing you can rehearse against for months, since it does not change.
Depending on how long you have
Foundation
Understand the skill. Months out, or starting from zero.
Cut a 15 x 20 card today and make it the only surface you ever practise on. Not approximately — exactly. You want the proportion so familiar that on the day your hands already know where the long axis runs and where the corners are, and none of your attention goes to reading the base.
Drill
The practice protocol. What to repeat, how often, how to score it.
Force the choice explicitly. Do three attempts with the same set of forms: one along the long axis, one across the short, one diagonal. Photograph all three. You will learn more about the base from that single exercise than from twenty unreflective attempts — including which of the three you instinctively reach for, which is worth knowing about yourself.
Exam-Day
What to actually do under the constraint — 108 seconds, no instruments, one pass.
Before touching a form, orient the base and decide your axis. Say it to yourself: along, across, or diagonal. Then engage at least one edge deliberately, and do not leave a polite rim of empty foam all the way round. That one habit is worth real marks and costs you fifteen seconds.
Try it
Thirty minutes, three attempts. This is the highest-value A3 exercise on the site.
- 01Cut a card to exactly 15 x 20 cm and get one fixed set of five or six objects.
- 02Attempt 1: compose ALONG the long axis. Photograph front and both obliques.
- 03Attempt 2: same objects, compose ACROSS the short axis. Photograph again.
- 04Attempt 3: same objects, compose on the DIAGONAL. Photograph again.
- 05Lay the nine photographs out together. Ask which reads strongest, which you reached for first, and how much of each base is doing no work at all.
The short version
The base is your only certainty: 15 x 20 cm, a 4:3 rectangle with a long axis, a short axis, corners, edges and a front. Treat it as a field to compose within rather than a shelf to stand things on. Choose your axis before you touch a form, engage an edge, and refuse the timid rim of empty foam around a centred huddle. Everything else about A3 is unknown until the morning — this is not.
Next: the three photographs that are actually marked, and how to build for them.
Questions people actually ask
- What size is the NATA A3 base sheet?
- 15 cm x 20 cm. It is a foam base sheet supplied with the kit at the centre, and it is glued to the question paper. It is the only dimension of the A3 question you can know before the exam, which makes it the one thing worth rehearsing against.
- Should my A3 composition fill the whole base?
- It should engage the base rather than fill it. A composition huddled in the centre with a rim of empty foam all round reads as timid, and one sprawling to every edge reads as unresolved. The useful move is deliberate engagement — run a mass to an edge, choose an axis, use the proportion — rather than aiming at a coverage percentage.
- Can I build along the diagonal of the A3 base?
- Yes, and it gives you the longest dimension available — about 25 cm corner to corner — plus real tension, because a diagonal disagrees with its frame. It is the most interesting and the riskiest option: it photographs well from the obliques and can read as chaotic head-on. Take it deliberately or not at all.