GATE – What is it and How to crack it?

What is GATE?

Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is an all India examination administered and conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science and seven Indian Institutes of Technology on behalf of the National Coordination Board - GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India.

So, GATE is simply an entrance exam to pursue your Post Graduate programme.

Why GATE?

Taking GATE has several benefits. I can list a few here.

1. If you want to get into the top colleges including IITs (Indian Institute of Technology), NITs (National Institute of Technology), IISc (Indian Institute of Science) and other top universities and colleges all over India, surely the first option is to clear GATE.
   

   Im sure you all know the difficulty to get into IIT and NIT for your under graduate programme itself. Like IIT take BE students based on IIT-JEE, IIT takes M.E/M.Tech students based on GATE only. I shall explain little later how to get admission into IITs and NITs with a valid GATE score.
   

2. Top colleges in Tamilnadu, like SSN college of Engg, St. Joseph's college of Engg, PSG college of Engg etc. . gives more preference for GATE cleared candidates for filling up management seats. So not only you have options to try only IITs and NITs, you can try the other top colleges in all states.
   
3. An important point is, if you have cleared GATE then you are eligible to get a monthly stipend (of nearly Rs. 8000 per month) and yearly grant of Rs.10,000 (per year for book allowances etc. .). Besides these you can get many other scholarships and funds (if you do a great project, you can get funds from the government) too. . But this stipend and yearly grants and scholarships are applicable only if you are admitted in a Master Degree programme (Full Time)
   
4. And finally, that really lend hands in your interviews too. . You can easily impress your HR if you have a line 'I have cleared GATE' in your resume. (I have a cool experience twice in impressing my HR in interviews.).
   
5. GATE has two years validity and so if you have missed the college you wished, you can give a try in the next year too.
   

And there is a lot more to list, but I think this summary is enough.

How to crack GATE?

The magic is simple. 'Be clear with what you know.'

Yes. That is the real magic. GATE consists of simple questions that checks you basics. The main trap where the candidates get caught is at 2 things.

1. 4 options for a question seem to be right one.
   

   (Oh hoooo, we can't even choose correct one out of two. Here 4????? )
   

2. There is negative marking for every question.
   

   (Oouuuchhhh... Trapped!!!*:-[&*-\|)
   

But cool. That is not going to be much difficult to crack GATE, as I have cracked it not even preparing for a single day (as I don't have any idea to write GATE. I applied since my classmates applied).

Let us have a look at the question pattern of GATE, mark distribution and negative marks too.

There will be a total of 65 questions carrying 100 marks.

Q.1 to Q.25 (25 questions) carry one mark each (sub-total 25 marks). Q.26 to Q.55 (30 questions) carry two marks each (sub-total 60 marks). Questions Q.56 - Q.65 belong to General Aptitude (GA). Questions Q.56 - Q.60 (5 questions) carry 1 mark each (sub-total 5 marks) and questions Q.61 - Q.65 (5 questions) carry 2-marks each (sub-total 10 marks).

Questions Q.48 - Q.51 (2 pairs) are common data questions. Question pairs (Q.52, Q.53) and (Q.54, Q.55) are linked answer questions. The answer to the second question of the linked answer questions depends on the answer to the first question of the pair. If the first question in the linked pair is wrongly answered or is unattempted, then the answer to the second question in the pair will not be evaluated.

NEGATIVE MARKING: For Q.1 - Q.25 and Q.56 - Q.60, ⅓ mark will be deducted for each wrong answer. For Q.26 - Q.51 and Q.61 - Q.65, ⅔ mark will be deducted for each wrong answer. The question pairs (Q.52, Q.53), and (Q.54, Q.55) are questions with linked answers. There will be negative marks only for wrong answer to the first question of the linked answer question pair i.e. for Q.52 and Q.54, ⅔ mark will be deducted for each wrong answer. There is no negative marking for Q.53 and Q.55.

Questions on Engineering Mathematics will carry about 15% of the total marks.

Tips to crack GATE

1. As I said earlier, Be clear with what you know is applicable to nearly all the questions. Since the options may confuse you, be clear with the concepts what you know so that you can answer the questions faster.
   
2. Don't try to answer all the questions in the first try. Read the question first, if you are unsure or don't know the answer just skip and move on to next question.
   
3. If you are unsure about the answer, don't try to solve it again. You can solve it later. Even though there are only 65 questions, 3 hours won't be sufficient to solve all the questions.
   
4. Never make blind marking. Since there is negative marking, it affects your score more. So if you don't know the answer, just leave it. (I answered only 26 or probably 27 questions. My score is 24.00 which made 88.265 percentile)
   
5. Try to get complete 15 marks in the general aptitude question. As these 10 questions are pretty easier to solve and it will help to get a good score.
   
6. Problems in Maths (15%) will be based on simple formulas and simple calculations. Questions on Probability, Set theory, Permutations and Combinations, Numerical methods, prepositional logic etc.. will be more simpler. Only 1 or 2 questions on Integral calculus, Maxima, Minima etc seems to be difficult. But you can manage easily.
   
7. The remaining will be small problems that can be solved in one or two. And of course there are theoretical questions too.
   
8. While doing calculations check to convert the values into appropriate units for calculation. (Unit conversions like seconds, hours, minutes, meter, kilometer, millimeter etc). Because if you forget or mistakenly convert such a thing, then that will produce an answer which will be present as one of the option. So be careful and read such questions.
   
9. Don't forget to bring a scientific calculator. Ensure that you know to operate the calculator regarding logarithms, squares, square roots, powers, n^th root, binary operations and base conversions.
   
10. Regarding preparation, Just take your own time and solve as many as GATE old papers on your own. Refer your books, write in paper and solve it. Searching in internet or memorizing the questions with key will never be useful as you won't know the method to solve the problem. If you solve it by your own through a book (or probably your staff may help too), you can get an idea to solve such a kind of problems.
    

I think this may help somewhat. The post goes much longer. So if you have any more doubts, feel free to contact me.

Now, signing off..

With regards,

KP

(Why Be Ordinary When You Can Be Extra-Ordinary?)