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GATE 2019 Marks: 63.33 Rank -582

Selected in IIT Kanpur, see here for Interview experience: https://gateoverflow.in/blog/8079/iit-kanpur-ms-interview-experience

I started GATE preparation probably around starting of 3rd  year, I read a lot of blogs on GO, (see here) and they were really helpful for me, I just wanna go in a little detail about how I did everything - You see, I made a lot(trust me, a lot) of mistakes, so the only reason I'm writing this is to make sure you know the reality of things and then decide on your own what you have to do- Don't repeat these mistakes to get experience, read others experience and learn.
Started preparation with these –
Youtube videos of R, GeekforGeeks prep Notes, [Only good thing was I preferred Cormen for some parts in Algorithms, later switched to Narsimha(Also kind of mistake, realized after GATE)]

At that time my schedule was:

wakeup→Read one topic from Cormen.
Travel 30 KM to college via bus(Reading notes/ watching Downloaded videos )
Look for ways to bunk the class and read notes (I remember going to the topmost floor of our college with Astitva sitting near servers making loud noise and heat during summer)
Travel back home (Reading or watching the same videos to clear my understanding of what I read today)
Manage family shop (Here I also did my work from Remote Internship(As a Javascript developer) work).
Around 11-12: Back in my room - Watched NPTEL lectures plus some work from the internship

Got Gateforum material from library started solving questions (Went full berserk – solved them in 2-3 months )  – It also had material for reading- completed that too. We also found class notes of Ace/RBR/ME: completed them too. – see DON’T DO THIS [I read same things from different notes and in this much time I could’ve read from books which would’ve been much much better]

Now, this went for the whole 3rd   year, yeah whole 1 year kinda just went like that.

You see, I did work hard, studied a lot(At least that's what I thought at that time), but I was only average at that time, Then I quit the internship, told dad to free me from shop work and kind of locked myself in my room on off days, Because of some work I still had to travel around 10 KM daily via public transport after reaching home from college around 6 PM, I used to revise from NPTEL pdfs in Auto rickshaws, but it was no problem, I was working hard for my target and at that time using whatever method possible was a necessity.

Let me tell you this : If you study the right way - You won't have to study the same things many times as me, yes short notes from sites like geeks / gate-vidyalay are good for going through syllabus - In less than an hour you would finish a whole topic - but doing this is not only a bad way of studying for the first time, but It'll also create a negative impact on you- You will think you know things but you actually won’t plus you won't know what things you don't know[Yeah, I used to say to Astitva, Man I’ve studied the whole syllabus but don’t know why not getting these questions], Another thing which will happen is - you will face difficulties in reading books It'll be something like this: I've been reading for 2 hours and I haven't completed even one topic.

Take your time to understand things- you have to do this just once, you see I spent whole 1 year reading short notes and what did it gave me? - Nothing, When I saw answers by Arjun sir, Bikram sir [and many others here], discussions on Gate questions - It made me think I actually don't know anything, Not just solutions but the discussion in comments did “overflow”, things like “endianness”,”split-cache” seemed like out of world. Now I realized I need to study “Everything” properly- So I started using resources from GO classroom and NPTEL pdf, since I didn’t have much time to read all topics from Books so I read important parts from PDF version of standard books.

Test series:

1)MadeEasy : Total ,waste of my crucial 1 month time – They don’t reply when you post a doubt and their solutions are like such that they are given by those who are “studying” in ME, Don’t explain anything, they’re like for this question we use this formula, don’t ask us why we use it.[I didn’t even complete around 10 tests ]

2)Ace: Long repetitive tests -quality same as ME (I didn’t buy it, Astitva took it and I saw some of the tests)

3)R B R: Questions don’t follow serial order, Aptitude in between technical, repetitive questions, mostly very easy questions which make you feel good[Though some questions were better and explanation was little better than ME/ACE], left more than half of all tests   

4)Success Gateway: This free(Now paid) test series is really the “BEST” – both questions and explanations were great, Let me tell you – many similar questions were asked in GATE including pumping length, Inode, C program questions

5)Virtual gate: Also pretty great, Solutions were not always provided but you can find the solutions with some googling because they mostly take questions from GATE or MIT/Stanford Courses.

6)GATEBOOK free tests: Good quality -similar to Success Gateway

Most important are GATE papers, I did this mistake of taking so many tests from ME and ACE, Thank god I realized my mistake and left remaining tests, In last two months I only took GATE and Success Gateway tests. It was during test series and solving gate questions that I was clearing my misconceptions through GO answers and MIT/Standford notes.

Pro Tip: Use Notes from geeks/Gate-Vidyalaya to revise things not in the first time learning, first read from books and later when you need quick revision then only use these. BOOKS>NPTEL=MIT>other notes

D-DAY[You can see these mistakes and how much I attempted here]

Aptitude was so easy – I thought I’m gonna kill it (AIR-1 is in the bag), [because of my - “We’ll see what happens” kinda nature, I attempted English part and got negative marks(don’t do this)]

Technical part: Did a large number of questions wrong because of getting excited, Actually in test series you had maximum one trick per question, but in actual GATE every word is a game-changer, lost  4 marks only because of ignoring one word – “Independently”, Lost 2 marks on Inode question – I did everything right, Also Challenged on this question and got them to change answer key but I didn’t get any marks on it because I wrote 3.82 instead of 3.8 and it became out of range 3.7-3.8 [Pro Tip: Always answer in specified precision]

Conclusion: Read books → Use Gatecse resources→ see discussions and take part in them
(Most importantly don’t try to find short tricks else you might get long rank)

From my experience, I can surely tell this: You will not be able to clear any interview by reading short notes and fixed pattern based substandard material.

Gate 2017 Result is Out !!

Important Ones

http://gateoverflow.in/questions/mathematics/discrete-mathematics/mathematical-logic?sort=featured

More Questions:

First Order Logic

Important Questions:

http://gateoverflow.in/questions/mathematics/discrete-mathematics/graph-theory?sort=featured

More Questions:

Some Good Questions useful for GATE

 

IIT Bombay (MTech RA) written test this time has only Programming test. No GATE based aptitude test was conducted. There were a total of 28 RA positions (including institute RA's).

Test date : 18th May, 2017

Language : C or C++

Q-1: A table of employees with their respective salaries and supervisors was given. Now, we want to increment the salary of an employee but the new salary of the employee must be less than his boss's salary, otherwise either the boss's salary has to be incremented, or else we cannot increment that particular employee's salary.  [5 marks]

Q-2: 'N' people cast their votes for an election. Number of contestants were given. Find the winner of the election.  [5 marks]

Q-3: Assume a string consists of only small alphabets. Print only the distinct alphabets in the given string. And if there is something else except letters, print "error".   e.g  If string is "xxxx22yy" , output should be " xy error".  [10 marks]

Q-4: To print the reverse of a complete sentence.  [10 marks]

Q-5: A graph question was there. We have to have everything as input, like Number of vertices, number of edges, end vertices of each edge etc, and a number 'n'. Then in the undirected graph so formed, remove all vertices having degree larger than 'n' and output the remaining number of vertices.  [20 marks]

Q-6: A question about finding line intersection or something.  [20 marks]

P.S: Anybody who gave the test and remembers the exact questions, please feel free to edit or suggest.

 

Solution:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1045xTCSgG-lPKHEOQAiz1v6PrNpb4p3o?usp=sharing

My sole purpose of writing this post is that the previous interview experiences given here by our seniors have been a great help for me so I just wanted to carry forward the tradition. Moreover , take it as a token of thanks to all our seniors who have contributed to GO in any possible manner and a help for all the people who would be aiming for IITK in future. You can even read this post  just for the love of CS and because you like to do new and challenging problems.

There were 2 tests this year:

(1)Written Test (30 Marks) :

      1) 30 questions

      2) 2 hours duration

      3) We were required to choose one out of the two groups ‘Systems’ or ‘Theory’.

      4) Each question carried 1 mark each.

      5) There was no negative marking.

      6) MCQs can have multiple write answers , marks are given when all the answers are marked correctly.

      7) There were fill in the blanks and Numerical answer type questions , mostly one liners.

PS: We are not given back the question paper in IITK so I have tried to mention as many questions as I can recollect after the exam. In some of the questions I have not mentioned the exact question but just the concept the question was asked from ,an obvious reason being you cannot expect someone to remember the exact numerical values.I attempted the ‘System’ section so can’t recollect the questions from ‘Theory’section(I can add to this post if any of my friends tell me the questions in ‘Theory’section).

Q1) Address Resolution Protocol(there were 4-5 options we were required to mark all the right choices about ARP).

Q2)We were given Bandwidth,RTT,Packet Size,etc ,it was required to calculate the optimal window size.

Q3)There are two relations R1 with tuples r1 and R2 with tuples r2, r2 > r1 Minimum number of tuples in R1 Union R2.

Q4)printf -> system call or not

Q5)If we increase the pipeline depth , the time to execute a single instruction decreases.(T/F)

Q6)One program given in C language, it used string and stack, we were required to tell the correct output out of the choices given.

Q7)Given a function ,we were required to tell whether it computed a*b or a*(b+1).

Q8)Given page size and #bits in physical and logical address.We were required to calculate the size of the page table in Bytes.Each page table entry contained the translation bits,dirty bit,valid bit,etc.

Q9)There are 65 different instructions available in syatem,one instruction s1 uses a shift field based on word length and 2 registers. #registers=519. 64 bit processor .Calculate #bits used for s1.

Q10) Heap in array form given ,we were required to extractmin() and then report the resulting arrary.

Q11)Mini. #nodes in height 10 , Height balanced BST.

Q12) R1(A) PK ,R2(B) B PK references A on update cascade,R3(C) C PK references B on update cascade

R1: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

R2: 2 4 6 7

R3: 2 4 6

Update R1 set A=A+10 where A<5;

Select sum(C) from R3;

I will add more questions here.

(2) Programming Test(30 Marks):

      1) 2 questions.

      2) 2 hours duration.

      3) Ques 1 (10 Marks) and Ques 2 (20 Marks).

      4) Language : C

      5) We were required to code on Prutor(Online web-browser based IDE for program preparation and submission developed at IITK).

       6) There were 4 visible test cases and 10 hidden test cases. 

Q1) Print the second minimum element in the given integer array.(10 Marks)

Q2)Given an input in String format. We are considering base as 15(Allowed digits : 0,1,2,…,9,a,A,b,B,….,e,E).From the input string first take out the valid base 15 digits and then print its decimal equivalent and Zero if no valid base 15 digits).(20 Marks)

Eg1:

Input : IITKanpur@CSE

Output:2444

Valid base 15 digits: ace

Eg2:

Input : IITK

Output:0

Valid base 15 digits: none

Some useful materials : Syllabus Written Test

Sample Test Written

Prutor

Syllabus Programming Test

Any of my good friends who attended the IITK test and would like to suggest any corrections and additions in the questions provided here is most welcome.

this year set 1 paper was designed like Gate IT previous paper with some illogical and lengthy question.

acc to rule you can not give more than 1 min ques in 1 mark and more than 2 min ques in 2 mark.

and in this paper even in database and programming questions are so lengthy first write on that small book and solve it takes so much time .

even set designer is so much irresponsible that he did not know about the syllabus of gate

when they can organize mechanical branch paper in 2 session means about 1.2 lac people at a time

then why not for all cse people they can't organize the paper in 1 session only (total of 1 lac people)

this time iit professor are so irresponsible that even they can not understand the difficulty level of these 2 paper

what is the mentality behind this to give set 2 paper that much easy

this time iit roorkee is so much irresponsible in designing of paper

we have to raise our voice to arrange paper in 1 session only

Answer key for ISRO 2009 :  

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8_aYGBndW4HZ3ZSN1pmaWJNbGc

GATE 2018 Rank - 453

Category - General

year of graduation -2015

stream - CSE

Here I will be talking about my IISc CSA research interview.

My date of CSA Research interview was 21' st May, 2018.

CSA M.Tech. Research interview experience

For CSA Research , we had been given a selection form where we had to fill our choices of the research area, sub areas and background subjects which we wanted to be interviewed on. My choice-

Research area - Intelligent systems

Sub areas - Machine learning, data mining

Background subjects - Probability, Linear Algebra

Before the interview, we had a short half an hour written test. The paper for written test was different for every research area group - Intelligent Systems, Theoretical Computer Science and Computer systems.

The test was moderately easy with 10 questions in total. It had 2 questions from probability, 2 questions from eigen values and characteristic equation of a matrix, 1 question to sort the given functions into increasing order of time complexity, 1 question to guess the output of a c program, 1 question from computer organization cache part(to calculate the no of bits in tag field). There were 3 more questions which I don't remember. 

My advice on written test- In the question paper itself we had rough work area below each question. Try to provide the solution of your answer neatly in that area for each question as well. This might help the interviewers to know your level of understanding. Moreover it might create a good  impression of you on them.

I could answer 7/10 questions and all were correct to my knowledge. The results of the test was quickly announced within 1 hour. I was shortlisted and we were headed towards our interview rooms. My interview panel had 3 professors.

I1: Suman, you have graduated from IIEST Shibpur in 2015 and you have a cgpa of 8.02.

Me: Yes sir.

I1:  So what did you do for these 2-3 years after graduation?

Me: Sir, I was working at Lexmark International India Pvt. Ltd as a software engineer mainly on automation.(They did not seem much interested in knowing my job profile though).

I1: So Suman, you have selected Intelligent systems as your reasearch area and selected mc learning and data mining as sub area with background subjects probability theory and linear algebra?

Me: Yes sir.

I1: So what are the topics you have prepared for linear algebra?

Me: Matrices and determinants, Eigen values.

I1: Shall we start with eigen values?

Me: Yes sir.

I1: What are eigen values and eigen vectors?

Me: Answered.

I1: If you are given a matrix of order mxn, what are the number of eigen values it will have and why?

Me: (There was a trick in this question) Sir, for a matrix A to have eigen values we should have the order of A as nxn(i.e. it should be a square matrix and determinants exists only for square matrix). When we write the characteristic equation of the matrix, it comes out be a polynomial equation of degree n, and no of roots of a polynomial equation of degree n is n. The roots of this equation will be the eigen values, hence n eigen values for an nxn matrix.

I1: What do you mean by degree of a polynomial?(At this point I understood that they dig really deep to know whether we understand the basic maths concepts or not)

Me: The highest power of x in a polynomial in terms of x.

I1: Can a matrix of order 3 have 3 eigen values, two of them real and one of them complex?

Me: No sir. Because the characteristic equation of this matrix will be a polynomial of degree n and every polynomial equation has complex roots, if any in conjugate pairs. (This was a tough question for me and I gave a wrong answer).

I1: Take an example of a diagonal matrix and write it on the board.(I wrote). The matrix looked somewhat like this - 

I1: Looking at this example can you say that it is possible to have a complex eigen value and two real eigen values?

Me: (Confused) Yes sir. (Clearly it can be seen that eigen values of this matrix are 3i,1 and 2. So I said yes. But I am still confused about this.)

I1: Lets proceed further. Given a matrix relation A2=A, can u determine what will be the value of rank(A)+ rank(A-I)?

Me:(I was completely unaware of this, still I tried to deduce something.) It can be seen that A is an idempotent matrix. With the given relation we can write- 

A(A-I)=0, which means either A=0 or A=I (which is completely wrong. By now they would have seriously started doubting me.)

I1: Okay lets proceed Suman.

Me: (I somehow remembered for the previous question that if product of 2 matrices AB=0, it is not necessary that either A or B has to be a null matrix. I quickly fixed my mistake by saying it.) Sir, I made a mistake there, it is not necessary that either one of A and A-I has to be zero.

I1: Okay.

After this I was handed over to the 2nd professor who remained quiet all this while.

I2: What are the topics you have prepared in probability?

Me: Sir conditional probability, random variables.

I2: Okay so do you know what is a CDF?

Me: No Sir.

I2: (surprised) Have you never heard of it?

Me: (At that moment I could not remember anything as I was disappointed with my performance so far) No Sir. But I know what a PDF is.

I2: What is a PDF?

Me: Sir probability density function(I could have also said probability distribution function but this is what I could remember at that time. I explained what a probability density function in detail by explaining it on board with the help of graph of a random pdf. I also explained how the integration of probabilities of all the points on x axis turns out to be 1.)

I2: Okay. Can you tell what is the pdf of an exponential random variable?

Me: (My confidence went down further because I remembered the pdfs for all other random variables except this. I still said yes in the heat of the moment)Yes sir. It is

xe-λx (This is incorrect.Correct function is, f(x)=λe-λx where x >0 and f(x)=0 otherwise)

I2: Okay. Prove how the sum of probabilities for all the points for this random variable is equal to 1.

Me: I tried by integrating this function over x from x=0 to 1.(Even though my function was incorrect I tried to follow the correct method of proving it. The interviewers helped me one or two times wherever I was stuck, still my result was not coming out to be 1 because of the incorrect function I was using. I even remembered and said the correct function for exponential random variable somewhere in the between, but the interviewer said that the function does not matter, which implied that he was more interested in the approach I was following)

I1: Okay Suman, we are done with the interview

Me: Thank you Sir

Result: Selected

Information Collected from multiple sources(primarily from Wikipedia, Wolfram Alpha and Narsingh Deo Textbook)

TYPE	Vertex	Edge	Degree	Cycle	Component	Chromatic Number	Matching, covering and Independent Set	Other
Simple Undirected	If there is exactly 2 vertices of odd deg then there is a path joins these 2 vertices	Every cut set of a connected graph G includes at least one branch from every spanning tree of G.	no of vertices of odd degree is always even	Every circuit has an even number of edges in common with any cut set	If K components, then at most (V-K)(V-K+1)/2 edges	A graph with one or more vertices is at least 2-chromatic.    A graph consisting of simply one circuit with |V|>=3 is 2-chromatic if n is even and 3-chromatic if n is odd.	Independence Number+Vertex Covering Number = |V|   If no isolated vertices there, then Matching Number+Edge Covering Number = |V|   Matching No<=Vertex Cover No<=2*Matching No	Cycle graphs with an even number of vertices are bipartite
Unicursal	In a connected graph G with exactly 2k odd vertices, there exist k edge-disjoint subgraphs such that they together contain all edges of G and that each is a unicursal graph							An open walk that includes (or traces) all edges of a graph without retracing any edge is called a unicursal line or open Euler line. A connected graph that has a unicursal line is called a unicursal graph
Tree	There is one and only one path between every pair of vertices in a tree T	No of edges = |V| - 1 Every edge of a tree is a cut set				2		Every tree is bipartite
Euler	All vertices are even degree (Undirected)		Eulerian trail if and only if exactly zero or two vertices have odd degree	Eulerian cycle if and only if decomposed into edge-disjoint cycles	All vertices with nonzero degree belong to a single connected component (Undirected)			A planar bipartite graph is dual to a planar Eulerian graph and vice versa
Hamiltonian	If |V|%2==1 and |V| >=3 then No of edge disjoint Hamiltonian circuits = (|V|-1)/2   The number of different Hamiltonian cycles in a complete undirected graph on V vertices is (V − 1)! / 2 and in a complete directed graph on n vertices is (V − 1)!. These counts assume that cycles that are the same apart from their starting point are not counted separately. A Hamiltonian graph on V nodes has graph circumference V.	a complete graph with more than two vertices is Hamiltonian every cycle graph is Hamiltonian every tournament has an odd number of Hamiltonian paths every platonic solid, considered as a graph, is Hamiltonian the Cayley graph of a finite Coxeter group is Hamiltonian An Eulerian graph G (a connected graph in which every vertex has even degree) necessarily has an Euler tour, a closed walk passing through each edge of G exactly once. This tour corresponds to a Hamiltonian cycle in the line graph L(G), so the line graph of every Eulerian graph is Hamiltonian. Line graphs may have other Hamiltonian cycles that do not correspond to Euler tours, and in particular the line graph L(G) of every Hamiltonian graph G is itself Hamiltonian, regardless of whether the graph G is Eulerian. Meyniel  A strongly connected simple directed graph with n vertices is Hamiltonian if the sum of full degrees of every pair of distinct non-adjacent vertices is greater than or equal to 2n − 1. Rahman-Kaykobad  A simple graph with n vertices has a Hamiltonian path if, for every non-adjacent vertex pairs the sum of their degrees and their shortest path length is greater than n.			All Hamiltonian graphs are biconnected, but a biconnected graph need not be Hamiltonian (see, for example, the Petersen graph) A tournament (with more than two vertices) is Hamiltonian if and only if it is strongly connected   Bondy–Chvátal theorem A graph is Hamiltonian if and only if its closure is Hamiltonian.			All planar 4-connected graphs have Hamiltonian cycles, but not all polyhedral graphs do If the sums of the degrees of nonadjacent vertices in a graph G is greater than the number of nodes N for all subsets of nonadjacent vertices, then G is Hamiltonian Dirac  A simple graph with n vertices (n ≥ 3) is Hamiltonian if every vertex has degree n / 2 or greater Ore  A graph with n vertices (n ≥ 3) is Hamiltonian if, for every pair of non-adjacent vertices, the sum of their degrees is n or greater  Ghouila-Houiri A strongly connected simple directed graph with n vertices is Hamiltonian if every vertex has a full degree greater than or equal to n.
Spanning Tree	Adding just one edge to a spanning tree will create a cycle; such a cycle is called a fundamental cycle (Fundamental circuits). There is a distinct fundamental cycle for each edge; thus, there is a one-to-one correspondence between fundamental cycles and edges not in the spanning tree. For a connected graph with V vertices, any spanning tree will have V − 1 edges, and thus, a graph of E edges and one of its spanning trees will have E − V + 1 fundamental cycles.		A shortest spanning tree T for a weighted connected graph G with a constraint Deg(Vi) for all vertices in T. for k=2, the tree will be Hamiltonian path	Every circuit of a connected graph G includes at least one link from every co spanning tree of G.
Fundamental Circuit	If the branches of the spanning tree T of a connected graph G are b1, . . . , bn−1 and the corresponding links of the co spanning tree T ∗ are c1, . . . , cm−n+1, then there exists one and only one circuit Ci in T + ci (which is the subgraph of G induced by the branches of T and ci)							Dual to the notion of a fundamental cycle is the notion of a fundamental cutset. By deleting just one edge of the spanning tree, the vertices are partitioned into two disjoint sets. The fundamental cutset is defined as the set of edges that must be removed from the graph G to accomplish the same partition. Thus, each spanning tree defines a set of       V – 1 fundamental cutsets, one for each edge of the spanning tree.
Bipartitite			Emax = |V| / 2		Only even length cycles	2	No of Perfect Matching in Kn,n = n! Matching No = Vertex Cover No If no isolated vertices there, then independence no = edge cover no Min Vertex cover of Km,n = min(m,n)
Complete			E = |V|* (|V|-1)/2				Number of Perfect Matching in K2n = (2n)! / [2^n * n!] And for Kn = (2m-1)*(2m-3)*…*5*3*1 Where n=2m Number of Perfect Matchings = (|V| - 1) !
Digraph	A directed graph has an Eulerian trail if and only if at most one vertex has (out-degree) − (in-degree) = 1, at most one vertex has (in-degree) − (out-degree) = 1, every other vertex has equal in-degree and out-degree   A directed graph has an Eulerian cycle if and only if every vertex has equal in degree and out degree	In a connected  isograph D of n vertices and m arcs, let W = (a1, a2,..., am) be an Euler line, which starts and ends at a vertex v (that is, v is the initial vertex of a1 and the terminal vertex of am). Among the m arcs in W there are n − 1 arcs that enter each of  n−1 vertices, other than v, for the first time. The sub digraph D1 of these n−1 arcs together with the n vertices is a spanning arborescence of D, rooted at vertex v.				Length of Directed Path = Chromatic Number - 1		A directed graph has an Eulerian cycle if and only if every vertex has equal in degree and out degree A directed graph has an Eulerian trail if and only if at most one vertex has (out-degree) − (in-degree) = 1, at most one vertex has (in-degree) − (out-degree) = 1, every other vertex has equal in-degree and out-degree, A digraph is said to be disconnected if it is not even weak. A digraph is said to be strictly weak if it is weak, but not unilateral. It is strictly unilateral, if it is unilateral but not strong. Two vertices of a digraph D are said to be i. 0-connected if there is no semi path joining them, ii. 1-connected if there is a semi path joining them, but there is no u−v path or v−u path, iii. 2-connected if there is a u−v or a v−u path, but not both, iv. 3-connected if there is u−v path and a v−u path.
Planar	Every planar graph with |V| has a nonplanar complement    If both graph G and its graph complement G’ are planar, then G has eight or fewer vertices.	For a simple, connected, planar graph with V vertices and E edges and F faces, the following simple conditions hold for V ≥ 3: E ≤ 3V − 6 If there are no cycles of length 3,  then E ≤ 2V − 4. F ≤ 2V − 4.   Euler's formula V − E + F = 2   Planar graph density D = (E-V+1)/(2V-5) D=0 → Completely Sparse graph D=1 → Completely Dense graph						Kuratowski's theorem a finite graph is planar if and only if it does not contain a subgraph that is a subdivision of K5 (the complete graphon five vertices) or of K3,3   Wagner's theorem a finite graph is planar if and only if its minors include neither K5 (the complete graph on five vertices) nor K3,3    A graph is planar if it has a combinatorial dual graph. Only planar graphs have duals.

 

PRE-INTERVIEW:

• Gate Score Cut-off was around 625-630 (that' what I have heard)
• MTECH CSE Intake: 40 Vacancies
• Around ~400 students were shortlisted for the process, out of which only 170-180 students attended.
• The process was meant for two days, but they finished it on the first day itself (Interviews were taken till 2200).
• Reporting Time: 0830, Everyone was seated in Auditoriums and Dean of Academics presented their college. At around 0900 tea-coffee-biscuits were offered, and around 0930 Written Test commenced.
   

WRITTEN-TEST/ PROGRAMMING TEST:

• Written Test, 60 Mins, 30 Ques. Marking Scheme: +2, -1
  I found Written Test to be quite challenging, Approximately 1/3rd questions were from Discrete Mathematics. I attempted 23 questions, out of which I think at most 15 would've been correct.
   
• Programming Test: 60 Mins, 5 Questions.
  Platform: Hackerrank
  This part of the test was very easy. 5 Questions in 60 Minutes, might seem very challenging at first, but 2-3 questions consumed just 15-20mins in total. I did 4 questions completely and passed 7/14 TestCases for the last one.
  
  All this process got over by 1230 and the shortlisted candidates for Interviews were to be announced at 1400-1430, with Interviews starting from 1445. 

INTERVIEW:

• Students were shortlisted marked on the combined performance of Written/Programming Test, and I don't think GATE Score played any role in shortlisting procedure.
• 75 Students were selected for Interviews, divided into 3 Interview Panels. Each panel had 3 professors.
• Interview Experience ( There were 3 Professors, I'll address all three as P)
  
  (Resume wasn't needed for Interview, so they didn't knew much about background of work that I've been doing)
  
  P: Tell us about Yourself.
  Me: Did.
  P: How many questions did you do in Programming Test?
  Me: I did 4.5
  They seemed quite impressed by it (all three panelists started looking at each other)
  
  P: What are your favorite subjects?
  Me: DS, Algo, CN.
  P: So should we start with DS?
  Me: Yes.
  P: Ok, can you tell us, what is a Hamiltonian path?
  Me: (I was shocked at first, that they targeted the theoretical part of Data-Structures, I was a bit fumbled)
         I  don't know the exact definition, but I know it's like         Spanning Tree.
  P: No no, they both are entirely different.
  After fumbling a bit,
  P: If you don't know it, you can tell us, we can move on to other question.
  Me: Yes
  
  P: Suppose you're given a polynomial expression, what data-structure would you use for storing it?
  Me: (Me moving over to whiteboard) I'd definitely not use an array. I'd go with vecor...as I'
  P: (Interrupts me) I don't know vectors.
  Me: (This got me nervous) Ok, I'd switch to using a Hashmap, as I
  P: (Interrupts again) I don't know hashmap either
  Me: (They were looking for specific answers only), I'd use a linked list.
  P: Yes, that's what I know.

  P: Now suppose there' another polynomial expression, and you have to add both, how would you do it?
  Me: I'd keep Linked List in sorted order for this and explained further on the whiteboard. (they seemed ok with my solution)
  Me: But this structure would face issues if I'd have to lots of issues in insertions, and if possible, I'd have used Hashmap (No reaction from their side)

  P: I see that you've selected Machine Learning as your field of study.
  Me: Yes, during filling my form, this was the most viable option that I understood, the other two fields I wasn't much sure about.
  P: What do you know about clustering?
  Me: (Shocked at first, as I wasn't ready for ML questions, but since I knew about clustering, I took a go at it), clustering, how it's an unsupervised form of learning
  P: Ok, so you know. Suppose that you have a straight line and two cluster centers, C1 and C2, how would you minimize it. (These were the exact words, I didn't understood the question at all)
  Me: Sir, I don't undertsand what you're trying to ask.
  P: He repeated the same line again.
  Me: (I drew a slanted x = y line on board)
  P: No no, a straight line
  Me: Like an X-Axis
  P: Yes
  Me: (Drew x-axis, and two cluster centers)
  P: Yes, now minimise it.
  Me: By minimise, do you mean optimizing it?
  P: Yes, yes that's optimising (as if he was trying to say this word all along)
  Me: Sir, I don't know much about this.
  P: You'd take Difference between points
  Me: Yes, I'd take dataset points and take difference between points and centers, and take a square again, to keep values positive, ahhh
  P: But how do you know that you've minimised the cluster centers? How do you verify it?
  Me: I don't know, Sir.

  That's it. I don't have any chance in it. But learnt a thing or two about IIT Interviews, and shared it.
   

$\large \color{Blue}{\textbf{ COAP INFO BROCHURE}}$ http://coap.iitm.ac.in/pdfs/COAP%202020_IB_v7.pdf

$\large \color{Blue}{\textbf{ LAST YEAR STATISTICS :-}}$   https://gatecse.in/important-dates/

$\large \color{Blue}{\textbf{ INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE LIST :-}}$ https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9628/

$\large \color{Blue}{\textbf{ LAST RANKS :-}}$ http://gatecselastrank.com/

---

$\LARGE \color{Blue}{\textbf{ IISc and IITs}}$

$\color{Blue}{\textbf{S. No}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{NAME OF COLLEGE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf {EXAM DATE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf {APPLICATION START }}$	$\mathbf{{\color{Blue}{APPLICATIONS\ ENDS}}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{ APPLICATION LINK}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{INTERVIEW EXPERIENCE}}$
$1.$	$\text {IISc}$	$\text{Interview date- 18-22 May 2020}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{23 March 2020}$ $\text{Research – 6 April 2020}$	https://admissions.iisc.ac.in/Web/SelectUGPG.aspx	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9621/gate-cse-iisc-admissions
$2.$	$\text {IITB}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{18 March 2020}$	$\text{9 April 2020}$	http://www.iitb.ac.in/newacadhome/mtech.jsp	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9644/gate-cse-iit-bombay-admissions
$3.$	$\text {IITM}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{Updating soon}$		https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9656/gate-cse-iit-madras-admissions
$4.$	$\text{IITD}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{2 March 2020}$	$\text{30 March 2020}$	https://ecampus.iitd.ac.in/PGADM/login	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9659/gate-cse-iit-delhi-admissions
$5.$	$\text{IITK}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{16 March 2020}$	$\text{7 April 2020}$	https://pingala.iitk.ac.in/PGADM-0/login	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9657/gate-cse-iit-kanpur-admissions
$6.$	$\text{IITKgp}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{Updating soon}$		https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9714/mtech-admission-procedure-formerly-delhi-college-engineering
$7.$	$\text{IITR}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{20 march 2020}$	$\text{15 April 2020}$
$8.$	$\text{IITG}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{2 March 2020}$	$\text{1 April 2020}$	https://www.iitg.ac.in/acad/admission2020/mtech/	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9667/gate-cse-iit-guwahati-admissions
$9.$	$\text{IITH}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{Updating soon}$	$\text{Updating soon}$		https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9673/gate-cse-iit-hyderabad-admissions

---

$\LARGE \color{Blue}{\textbf{ Other Colleges}}$

$\color{Blue}{\textbf{S. No}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{NAME OF COLLEGE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf {EXAM DATE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf {APPLICATION START }}$	$\mathbf{{\color{Blue}{APPLICATIONS\ ENDS}}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{ ADVERTISMENT| LINK}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{ FEE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{OTHER LINKS}}$
$1.$	$\text {IIITH}$	$\text{26 April 2020}$	$\text{12 Feb 2020}$	$\text{31 March 2020}$	http://pgadmissions.iiit.ac.in/pgee.html	$\text{2000}$
$2.$	$\text {IIITD}$	$\text{3 May 2020}$	$\text{16 March 2020}$	$\text{16 April 2020}$	https://www.iiitd.ac.in/admission/mtech/2020	$\text{510}$	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9624/admission-procedure-in-iiitd https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rO_nwm5HHLbjJMHHzOQrDHkaIcEAUHgh
$3.$	$\text{CMI}$	$\text{15 May 2020}$	$\text{9 March 2020}$	$\text{11 April 2020}$	https://www.cmi.ac.in/admissions/	$\text{Online – 750}$ $\text{Offline – 500}$
$4.$	$\text{ISI}$	$\text{10 May 2020}$	$\text{14 Feb 2020}$	$\text{16 March 2020}$	https://www.isical.ac.in/~admission/	$\text{Male Candidates - 1250}$ $\text{Female Candidates - 750}$ $\text{SC| ST|OBC|PwD -625}$	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/8987/isi-cmi-pdf-by-gate-overflow
$5.$	$\text{DTU}$	$\text{June last week}$	$\text{1st Week of  May}$	$\text{3rd Week of  June}$	http://dtu.ac.in/	$\text{SC| ST| PwD categories - 500}$ $\text{Male-1000}$	https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9714/mtech-admission-procedure-formerly-delhi-college-engineering

---

$\LARGE \color{Blue}{\textbf{ PSUs}}$

$\color{Blue}{\textbf{S. No}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{NAME OF PSU }}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf {EXAM DATE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf {APPLICATION START }}$	$\mathbf{{\color{Blue}{APPLICATIONS\ ENDS}}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{ ADVERTISMENT| LINK}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{ FEE}}$	$\color{Blue}{\textbf{OTHER LINKS}}$
$1.$	$\text{BARC}$	$\text{14 March 2020 to 18 March 2020}$	$\text{6 Jan 2020}$	$\text{9 Feb 2020}$	https://www.barconlineexam.in/engineer/index.html	$\text{500}$	http://www.barconlineexam.in/engineer/documents/Advertisement-2020.pdf http://www.barconlineexam.in/document/barc_information_brochure_2020.pdf
$2.$	$\text{NIELIT}$	$\text{not announced yet}$	$\text{26 Feb 2020}$	$\text{26 March 2020}$	https://www.calicut.nielit.in/nic/	$\text{SC| ST| Pwd|Women - free!}$ $\text{Others - 800}$	https://gateoverflow.in/tag/nielit-2018 http://beta.nielit.gov.in/delhi/content/previous-question-papers-recruitment-exam  http://beta.nielit.gov.in/content/old-question-papers-0
$3.$	$\text{BIS}$	$\text{Based on Gate-18,19 and 20 score }$	$\text{2 Feb 2020}$	$\text{31 March 2020}$	https://bis.gov.in/index.php/recruitment-to-the-post-of-scientist-b/	$\text{SC| ST| Pwd|Women - free!}$ $\text{Others - 100}$	https://bis.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Final-Detailed-Advertisement-for-Website.pdf

Please comment below if there is some mistake or any new exam application begins , I will keep updating this blog.

We are having a Telegram group for GATE CSE 2022 preparation as per the GO Schedule. Group is open to all but with strict guidelines as given below. Spammers will get instant ban.

Posting guidelines for GATE Overflow Telegram group for GATE CSE 2022

1. Posting of doubts only as per GO schedule, you can post from any subject which is past in the schedule but not from future.
2. No coaching queries except for links already on GO site - you really don't need them.
3. All the subject resources are shared on classroom.gateoverflow.in under respective subject pages - you need to self enroll for each subject course 
4. Previous year questions - GO link or GO PDF image -- all questions are already answered there including discussion.
5. Self doubts allowed -- but only if it's a "self doubt" (no questions from unknown source being posted as self doubts)
6. Images from standard books or videos are allowed
7. If a question/doubt has been answered by someone, don't answer it again unless you have something more to add.
8. Private messaging is strictly discouraged unless with prior approval of the person.

Link to Join: https://t.me/gateoverflow_cse

Hello friends !! Good morning !!

Today I am going to share my experiences about the types of mistakes which I committed and their possible solutions in context of GATE 2016 and GATE 2017 wherever I can cite examples which I attempted and secured 332 rank and 613 rank respectively [ a very rare occurence I think..:) bcoz I have seen numerous examples whose rank in prev attempt is around 2000 and then around 100 or even better in next attempt ]  due to some  mistakes..I had many hopes of excelling this year but unfortunately the D-day did not work for me..So let me tell about the potential mistakes that may be committed during exam..

Mistake type 1 :

The first mistake that I am referring is related to psychological state of a student during examination..Let we have a scenario in which a student consistently does well in tests that he/she gave in the different test series..Now it is possible that expectation factor comes into picture for a student in the exam that he/she need to attempt around 60 questions at any cost..This should not happen as it will create unnecessary pressure and may be responsible for commitment of many mistakes as the paper may be difficult and hence the questions need to be attempted accordingly as is the case of set 1 paper this time..One has to overcome the panic that may be possible in the initial minutes of attempting the paper ..In short one should have expectation but not during paper solving,,The questions should be solved on the basis of difficulty..Identification of difficulty level of a question is important..

Mistake type 2:

Misreading the question : Sometimes due to lack of concentration , what we do we misinterpret the question.The gate paper setters are very intelligent and they intentionally give such options such that the option corrresponding to misinterpretation will be there.As a result what happens we get wrong there.I used to do a lot of mistakes like that.

As an example , in a question it may say that "identify a false statement" .We do not read the entire question and understand that we have to pick the correct one thus leading to wrong result.

Mistake type 3 :

Having the default mindset regarding a question : Sometimes what happens that we have a default mindset regarding a concept or a fact being used in the question.This default or trivial  mindset often leads to error.As an example , in DBMS in normalisation , we may be asked weakest normal form of a table given the FDs of a relation.What is generally in our mind is that we have to choose the strongest i.e. the most appropriate and highest normal form which the FD set satisfies.But in question we are asked about the weakest so people may commit mistakes here.In fact this question came this year in gate,the link being:

http://gateoverflow.in/39646/gate-2016-1-23

Similarly we know about Dining Philosopher's Problem solution which is deadlock free and satisfies the criteria for proper synchronisation construct.But in exam just for name's sake it may be used but code used may suffer from problem .So we have to examine the code properly.

 

Mistake type 4:

Like question solved earlier : 

When we have similar or exact question which have solved earlier somewhere , beware of this.U have to think it as a new question and solve it properly.Some people gets overjoyed and hence commit mistakes.I did the same type of mistake on finding no of topological sort this year,

In all of the above scenarios , we should do the following :

a) We should read the whole question properly at least once , then ask to oneself what facts are given.Jot them in a piece of paper especially for numerical type questions.Else what happens is repeatedly we have to switch between paper and screen and hence time is also wasted and also one is not able to concentrate on the question.So all the important data should be mentioned like to calculate  throughput in CN we have to note down distance between stations , data size etc.

b) Then we should solve the question systematically following procedure in a proper way

c) Following answering we should verify and recheck it at least once is it the thing that is asked for.

d) Option elimination also plays an important role in some cases.Make the best use of that as it saves time.

 

Now coming to the ambiguous issue :

First of all there are 2 types of questions :

a) Conceptual and theoretical :

For this clear hold on subject is required so that u can decide whether the question is ambiguous or not within a short span of time.

b) Numerical :

Here actually there is hardly anything we can do.We have to solve after all.If after solving we find that no option is matching or more than 2 options are correct.Then we cannot do anything.Actually it rarely happens in gate , but if at all it happens , then normally marks are given to all for that.So no need to worry about that.

Sometimes from the question solving point of view setting counter example also helps.For example in problems where are we are given some statements about MST or Graph Traversals etc.There if we are able to set counter examples , it is very helpful.

 

Hope the points mentioned by me will prove to be helpful for the GATE 2018 aspirants.Thank you..

Blogs of CSA Research Interview Experience at IISc.

https://stanlysamuel.quora.com/Indian-Institute-of-Science-Bangalore-interview-experience-June-8th-2016-which-made-me-an-IIScian

https://meghabyali.wordpress.com/2016/06/24/my-journey-to-iisc-2/

Those who have received campus placements and passing out in year 2022 please fill out this form. The filled data (excluding contact emails) will be curated and made available to everyone soon. 

https://lnkd.in/eE6-UhEd

Responses: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/4/d/e/2PACX-1vTvEn00-4Jd-dpLcjAgMd0xEY3K526wdrmRoD8tcsWiguPBg7irJ8nvZ2bFXtl3x7hqGJc4o93VR1MX/pubhtml?gid=1559738693&single=true

Probability and Statistics: Counting (permutation and combinations), probability axioms, Sample space, events, independent events, mutually exclusive events, marginal,  conditional, and joint probability, Bayes Theorem,  conditional expectation and variance, mean, median, mode and standard deviation, correlation, and covariance, random variables, discrete random variables and probability mass functions, uniform, Bernoulli, binomial distribution, Continuous random variables and probability distribution function, uniform, exponential, Poisson, normal, standard normal, t-distribution, chi-squared distributions, cumulative distribution function, Conditional PDF, Central limit theorem, confidence interval, z-test, t-test, chi-squared test.

Linear Algebra: Vector space, subspaces, linear dependence and independence of vectors, matrices, projection matrix, orthogonal matrix, idempotent matrix, partition matrix, and their properties, quadratic forms, systems of linear equations and solutions; Gaussian elimination, eigenvalues, and eigenvectors, determinant, rank, nullity, projections, LU decomposition, singular value decomposition.

Calculus and Optimization: Functions of a single variable, limit, continuity, and differentiability, Taylor series, maxima and minima,  optimization involving a single variable.

Programming, Data Structures and Algorithms: Programming in Python, basic data structures: stacks, queues, linked lists, trees, hash tables; Search algorithms: linear search and binary search, basic sorting algorithms: selection sort, bubble sort, and insertion sort; divide and conquer: mergesort, quicksort; introduction to graph theory; basic graph algorithms: traversals and shortest path.

Database Management and Warehousing: ER-model, relational model: relational algebra, tuple calculus, SQL, integrity constraints, normal form, file organization, indexing, data types, data transformation such as normalization, discretization, sampling, compression; data warehouse modelling: schema for multidimensional data models, concept hierarchies, measures: categorization and computations.

Machine Learning: (i) Supervised Learning: regression and classification problems, simple linear regression, multiple linear regression, ridge regression, logistic regression, k-nearest neighbour, naive Bayes classifier, linear discriminant analysis, support vector machine, decision trees, bias-variance trade-off, cross-validation methods such as leave-one-out (LOO) cross-validation, k-folds cross-validation, multi-layer perceptron, feed-forward neural network; (ii) Unsupervised Learning: clustering algorithms, k-means/k-medoid, hierarchical clustering, top-down, bottom-up: single-linkage, multiplelinkage, dimensionality reduction, principal component analysis.

AI: Search: informed, uninformed, adversarial; logic, propositional, predicate; reasoning under uncertainty topics - conditional independence representation, exact inference through variable elimination, and approximate inference through sampling.

http://www.barconlineexam.in/

http://www.barconlineexam.in/engineer/documents/Advertisement-2020.pdf

http://www.barconlineexam.in/document/barc_information_brochure_2020.pdf

Before you read any further, you should judge me, because I am not a topper! My rank(558) and gate score(729), marks (63.67). It is important for you to decide if my experience is worth your time. Also, the usual disclaimer, below is My reasoned routine for GATE 2019.

First things first, there is "NO SHORT CUT TO THE GATE JOURNEY". Quite trivial a line it is and you must indeed learn to value the meaning that it holds. For those preparing for GATE 2020, the biggest challenge you have right now is time. Not that you have less time in hand, but the fact that you have way way more than whats required to kill GATE, calls for immense dedication to keep the regularity of studies going. At times you shall feel that the pace at which your preparation is going is pretty good, and you deserve a break. Trust me, you DO NOT DESERVE A BREAK, SHOULD YOU WISH TO BE AT IISc. At times you shall feel that the pace is below par, and that you are not gonna make it. Everyone feels so. But the secret is to keep pushing. Ask those who go to gym, what matters. Trying to lift the weight, when you thought you could not, gets you the shape!

Secondly, there will be a lot of advises and preparation strategies from your well-wishers. But before resolving to any of them, you should know that "These are tips, that worked for them", might not work for you. So even after following the tips and strategies of your well-wishers, you should have your own ingredient.

If at all you are feeling comfortable in the course of your preparation, trust me, you are not putting in enough. If a comfortable effort could get you an IISc or a good IIT, you would not have bothered reading such a long post, at the first place. You are supposed to feel the sense of loss of social enjoyment.

Thirdly, for freshers, try to get placed into a company in your college interviews. Takes the pressure off for GATE. Makes you write GATE with little expectations.

Final days(last 2 months) of your preparation are the most important. This is where I believe your rank gets improved by around a 1000. Be brutal with yourself. Dont let yourself sit idle. Every second of your last moments count. As far as I am concerned, I used to have one of the four corners of my mosquito net hung, to save time before and after my sleeps.
In this period of your preparation, having friends(normal ones as well as the Shona Janu ones :P) is poisonous to you. However, having a best friend shall be your penicillin. He will push your mind from the outside.
You will also need an internal sense of "I CAN DO IT". You have to find yourself, what it is that you can do, to give you a sense of achievement. I used to walk a distance of 10-11 Km a day, to make me feel mentally and physically enabled.

The tips that I religiously followed are:
1. Write my own notes.
2. Besides writing my notes, I also wrote my reasons to kill GATE. These reasons are personal to me so aint writing here(Whom am I kidding :P I had a breakup). Made sure that when I went through these notes, my reasons were right in front of me. These were like my statement of purpose to my future self.
3. I tried to solve questions mentally. I did not use pen and paper. Once solved in my mind, I wrote the solution along with the question in my notebook.
4. Every time I solved a question in an inappropriate way, wrote my mistakes. However silly a mistake that might be(REVISING YOUR MISTAKES IS ALSO A FORM OF REVISION. THE ONE THAT MAKES YOU REMEMBER WHAT NOT TO DO). Along with the mistake, also wrote the correct solution.
5. Posted my doubts in GO as well as in other groups. Sometimes, the posts were silly enough, to make me laugh at myself. But that’s worth it.
6. I started my test series somewhere around the start of January. Appeared approximately for 35-40 full length tests. TEST SERIES SHOULD BE TAKEN VERY SERIOUSLY, AND TAKING THEM AT 9am IN THE MORNING IS OPTIMUM. Even more important than appearing test series is, statistically analyzing them. By that I mean you should know in numbers(by number i mean positive and negative marks) how you perform in every subject. For me, I was specifically weak in discrete and compiler. I had enough time to boost one of them. So I chose to be better at discrete.
7. Except for the last two months, watched one English movie every week without subtitles, to keep my English in shape for college campus interviews.

8.THIS POINT IS MY OWN INGREDIENT IN MY PREPARATION. I used to tell everyone that I am gonna crack GATE with a rank<500 in first attempt. Yes. I ADVERTISED. PEOPLE USED THINK OF ME AS SOMEONE WHO BOASTS(CAUSE INITIALLY MY COLLEGE GRADES WERE HARDLY AROUND 6.5 TO 7, INCREASED LATER THOUGH). THE THING IS, IF YOU ADVERTISE YOUR POTENTIAL SUCCESS, YOU ARE SUB-CONSCIOUSLY FORCING YOURSELF TO DELIVER. Even if you fail, worst case is people remember you as a jerk. But its up to you to decide what you want.

All the best for 2020. Wish you a good health. :) Jai Hind.

Hi Friends,In this post i am going to share my MS Interview Experience which was held on 15th may at IITK.

First we had to clear written and programming test,held on 14th may 2018 and common for all M.tech/MS/PHD candidates.

You can find written test and programming questions in below post.

https://gateoverflow.in/blog/4508/iit-kanpur-m-tech-test-experience-14th-may-2018

Remember,they had two categories for test Theory and system and you had to choose any one of them.

I choosed System.Questions were easy.Most of them were from CO,OS,DBMS and few from algo and C.

I done very well in both written and programming test.

In the evening we got list of shortlisted candidates for MS interview.I got shortlisted for the MS interview which was scheduled on next day 8:30AM.

Those who  applied only for MTECH were free to leave ,after programming test.

I wasn't that serious about the interview,because i heard that they have very limited seats for MS.

I woke up at 8:00 AM and rushed to the interview venue without an breakfast.

There were 50-60 candidated shortlisted for sytstem category and around 20-30 for Theory category.

My turn came at around 12 AM.

There were Three professors in Room,all of them were very polite and encouraging.

Interviewer:Tell us something about yourself.

Me:I Told about my educational background and Job.

Interviewer:What kind of work you do at job? And then some other simple questions related to job.

Me:Told.

Interviewer:Have you passed all the test cases for both programming questions?

Me: said yes.They looked impressed with that.

Interviewer:What project you did in your b.tech.Do you remember that?

Me:i said yes and told them that my project was about designing a online Kmap calculator.

Interviewer:Can you please explain that on white board.

Me:i explained them about gui part on board and also the algorithm that i used in that.

(After this i explained everything on white board till interview ends.)

Interviewer:What was the motivation for this project.

Me:Told.

Interviewer:What are your favorite subjects and why?

Me:I said CO and OS and told them i was very interested in cpu design in b.tech and designed a 8-bit cpu from using only logic gates in a simulator.

(Again they were very impressed)

Interviewer:How can you implement a given FSM into the hardware?

Me:I took some time and told them by using combinational ckt.(may be sequential but i said combinational).

Interviewer:They gave me a FSM in truth table and asked me to design combinational ckt. for it?

Me:I designed it using i/p and o/p relationship.(i used these things when designing cpu).

Interviewer:Draw block diagram for the ckt.

Me:I drawn block diagram with the all input /output connections.

(Then there were some other basic questions related to modifications that we can do in that ckt.)

Interviewer:What is your favorite part in OS?

Me:I said process management.

Interviewer:How process starts?

Me:Told them that os first bring that process or part of the process in the MM.Then scheduler select process anI draw it and explain all the inputs and o/p.d assign cpu to it?

Interviewer:How cpu know address of instructions in process?

Me:In virtual memory system ,we have page table that translate LA to PA.

Interviewer:Where page table is stored?

Me:In Main Memory.

Interviewer:Can user Process access Page table entries?

Me:No,it is done in kernel mode.

Interviewer:so,every time we cpu access MM it need to switch to kernel mode to access page table?

Me:i wasn't sure but i said yes.

Then they discussed if any other professor wants to ask any question.

But all looked satisfied.And they asked me to leave.

After coming out from interview room,i was very sure that i will be get selected.

And ,in the end i got both M.tech and MS offers from IITK.

I will be going for M.tech.

Please keep in mind that in any MS interview they have following structure

1.Job experience or b.tech project

2.Favorite subjects.(Prepare these subjects thoroughly from basics)

And also see the area where you are applying and choose subjects according to that.

I choosed os and co because i had selected system and i also got benefit of this.