Gate Rank: 241 Current
college: IIT Delhi
Materials used for studying:
Gate notes I made during GATE
classes at gateforum.
Also referred some topics from
these notes
Books referred:
Algo: Cormen,
Data structures:TMH Lipchitz
Os Tanenbaum
Database Korth
Cn Fourouzan and Tanenbaum. Mostly fourouzan
Gate previous years:
Made easy gate previous year
question bank. (Topic wise division of questions, better for preparing, as after
every topic we get all questions at the one place)
Gateforum Gate Question(Better explanation
in answers. Also had questions from IT papers)
Though both books had errors in
answers but answers were better in gateforum book.
Test Series:
I joined gateforum online test
series. It was good but I can’t compare it with other test series as I only
joined this. The interface was good, similar to actual gate exams. Quality of
questions was also ok(not too good not bad either). There were some errors, but
I could get them easily as they gave good explanations and in explanations too
sometimes they pointed out errors. Test series in my view is a must for
improving one’s rank.
Experiences:
I mostly followed what teachers
taught at my institute nothing more or less than that. I thoroughly went
through each and every GATE previous year question related to the topic, after
covering any topic. Gate previous year questions help us evaluate whether we
are on the right track with our preparation or something is being missed. Most
of the doubts were cleared with fellow friends or on facebook groups and those
left I asked to the teachers in class.
I knew I had never studied as well as was weak in TOC as well as compiler design, so I didn't give much time to it, I rather concentrated on rest of the subjects, where I was strong and were more scoring, and did only theory and the parts that I liked from these subjects.
Gate online test series was one
of the most helpful source of confidence and an important tool to analyze our
preparation. It helps us realize where we stand compared to other aspirants and
also where what we have done in previous week. The detailed analysis of the
paper gave me insights into where I was wrong, what subjects I need to work
this week, and to analyze subjects that I have studied in last week, were they
helpful, by judging how much I attempted these subjects. It also helped me getting
a hint of my accuracy rate and my capacity (how many questions I can/should aim
for in the paper). It also helped me decide in what order I should attempt the
paper.
After every paper, I used to
discuss all the questions with my friend (on phone), we used to go through each
question in the paper. This was very helpful, as helpful as the paper itself,
as only knowing your mistakes is not enough, you need to work on them so that
they are not repeated.
Here is a link to test series
papers (pdfs):
Use them if you haven’t joined
any test series but do them in time specified, only then will they be helpful.
Order of attempting paper:
Order of attempting the paper is
really a matter of choice. As I was a little slow and many times couldn’t
complete paper in allotted time, I first used to do the aptitude and English first
then I used to move to 2 marks questions then I came back to 1 mark questions.
During the test series, I always
had an aim to get more than 70 marks and attempting around 50-53 questions,
which I could get to only onceL.
But during main GATE exam, I just concentrated on attempting maximum questions,
I did not try to reach 50 questions. I only had in mind to attempt at least of
50 marks, as below that, the colleges that I would have got were useless for me. I would suggest you to atleast read all the questions if there is less time left.
Gate Exam:
From the experience gained by
giving the online tests I had a blue print of how I would attempt the paper and
had an aim of attempting about 50-53 questions. I started answering questions
of aptitude and verbal section. I could attempt 9 out of 10 questions from the
section. I then moved on to 2 marks questions of the next section. I was on a
roll, one by one I could solve around 5 questions .It gave me a lot of
confidence which helped me in keep going without much thought. Next I lost
track of the time and next time I looked at timer I had around 25 mins left and
19 questions of 1 mark left un-attempted(unread). It was time for me to
accelerate. I picked up some speed and started doing questions which required
less time first. By the time exam ended I had attempted 47 questions. I was
upset as I thought I could have attempted 3-4 more questions had I managed time
properly.
GATE Result
One thing good about GATE is that
they give the result within a month. I got AIR 241, much better than I expected
(around 500-700).
Post Gate:
I got call from most of the older
IITs. IIT Bombay and IISC called me for secondary courses interviews, i.e. research
assistantship and SERC respectively, in rest of the IITs, I got direct
admission or an interview call.
In my experience, cracking GATE is very easy, you just have to be focused on your studies and a bit organized in your preparation. Smart work is as helpful as hard work.
Best of luck! May you succeed. :)
