Gate tips

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 

http://techbits.co.in/forum/cat-gre-gate-gmat/complete-gate-notes%28cseit%29/

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):

Gateforum http://www.4shared.com/zip/QEPQtF7Lce/gateforum_test_series.html

Made easy: http://www.4shared.com/zip/ICFLOik7ba/made_easy.html

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. :)