A journey from AIR 3511 to AIR 94

I  completed my B.Tech. from The NorthCap University Gurgaon in 2017. I have given gate twice once during final year(rank 3511) and now in 2018 with full-time repeat by self-preparation. I really want to express my gratitude to WAHEGURU, MY FAMILY and GO OVERFLOW Community.

How Gateoverflow helped me:-

1. Best possible solution to each and every previous year questions. It has not only helped me in building my concept but also the answers written by people like Arjun Sir, Sachin Mittal, Debashish Deka motivated me to have to the good grasp over the concept and in-depth knowledge regarding the topic like them.
2. Best Test Series as the level of the questions were similar to GATE. Thank you Bikram Sir for providing these tests.
3. Best possible answers to my doubt by gateoverflow users like Joshi Nitish, Ashwani Kulkarni.
4. Giving the accurate rank prediction. As per Praggy App, my Rank estimate was 88-119 and I got 94 rank. Thankyou Pragy Sir and Arjun Sir for this app.

My Strategy

1. Build my concept from standard books and by watching some videos on youtube.
2. After finishing my syllabus. I revised it for the first time and solved all previous year questions subjectwise.
3. Revised my notes and did previous year questions once again.
4. I started giving topics and subjectwise tests. I used to note down my mistakes and any new concept being asked in the question in a separate register.
5. After completing subject test I revised my notes again and mistakes that I have committed while giving tests.
6. Start giving Full-length tests.

InShort:- I have read books and solved only previous year questions multiple time.

Mistakes did by me during preparation:-

1. Started aptitude bit late i.e in end of December due to which able to score only 11/15 marks despite the fact that this year aptitude was very easy.
2. Feeling depressed when use to score lesser marks in test series but actually marks in test series are not the right way to judge your preparation.
3. While giving the GATE exam couldn’t able to maintain the cool and panicked because of thinking about the results.

GATE 2019 results are now out. Check here.

Please fill this form

More Details and guidance: https://gateoverflow.in/blog/7569/for-gatecse-admissions-2019

Recruitment to the post of Scientist-B /Engineer of  Advertisement Number (ISRO: ICRB:02(EMC):2023): 

• ISRO CSE post
• Age limit
•  

  Start date of application	25th May 2023
  Last date of application	14th June 2023

   

• Application fee
• Question paper pattern:
• Exam center cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Thiruvananthapuram. 
• Apply here
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• Frequently asked questions
• Previous year's ISRO paper

Someone showed me CCMT brochure this time. It seemed unnecessarily complex but due to lack of coordination from non participating Institutes this might be the best they could do. Anyway for CSE, I'll try to demystify many things.

First, this is what a typical candidate must do:

1. Fill the choices in the order they prefer. If you do not have a preference going by last year filling is not so bad - Last year stats
2. Until you are allotted a place, you need not do anything
3. If you are allotted never take "Freezing" option unless you are 100% sure you do not want any option higher -- but int hat case why they were given higher? Anyway use this with care
4. Sliding choice is also similar. It is to be used when a candidate liked the institute so much and does not want to move out
5. Floating should be the default option

Regarding Internal Sliding

This happens after 3rd round on June 11 and NSR vacancy listing on July 4. What happens here is if a seat in any department becomes vacant, someone who is allotted seat FOR ANY PROGRAM in THAT INSTITUTE is given that seat in order of merit. In my opinion this is against overall merit and is a sick procedure. Anyway that is how it is and they have at least made this public. So, now candidates have to use more logic while seat filling. I'll try to give some inputs. There is a 3 week gap for internal sliding. During this time many research admission lists will be published starting from IISc., and at least 30 people would be moving away from NITs. Also this time PSU allotment might come around this time which can cause more sliding. So, if you have a preferred institute, do fill for ALL programs you are eligible there.

NSR Rounds

NSR round is less of a lottery as they publish the vacancy and allotment happens in order of merit. But due to internal sliding we can never know if any branch seat will get vacant. Usually the highest preferred program (say Computer Science) in a college, gets fully filled during Internal sliding and the following program (say Information Security) seats come for NSR round. But this round is not meant for poor general/OBC candidates as they have to pay  Rs 42,200 for this.

Information Brochure

http://ccmt.gatecselastrank.com

http://ccmt-obc.gatecselastrank.com

http://ccmt-sc.gatecselastrank.com

http://ccmt-st.gatecselastrank.com

$$\color{Blue}{\textbf{Calculus}}$$

$$\color{Magenta}{\textbf{1.Trigonometry}}$$

$\textbf{Pythagorean Identities:}$

• $\sin^{2}\theta + \cos^{2}\theta = 1$
• $1+\tan^{2}\theta = \sec^{2}\theta$
• $1+\cot^{2}\theta = \csc^{2}\theta$

$\textbf{Reciprocal Identities:}$

• $\sin\theta = \dfrac{1}{\csc\theta}$
• $\cos\theta = \dfrac{1}{\sec\theta}$
• $\tan\theta = \dfrac{1}{\cot\theta}$
• $\csc\theta = \dfrac{1}{\sin\theta}$
• $\sec\theta = \dfrac{1}{\cos\theta}$
• $\cot\theta = \dfrac{1}{\tan\theta}$

$\textbf{Tangent and Cotangent Identities:}$

• $\tan\theta = \dfrac{\sin\theta}{\cos\theta}$
• $\cot\theta = \dfrac{\cos\theta}{\sin\theta}$

$\textbf{Formulas for twice of angle:}$

• $\sin2\theta = 2 \sin\theta \cos\theta$
• $\cos2\theta = 2\cos^{2}\theta\: – 1 = 1 – 2\sin^{2}\theta $
• $\tan2\theta = \dfrac{2\tan\theta} {1− \tan^{2}\theta} = \dfrac{\sin 2\theta} {1− 2\sin^{2}\theta}$

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

$\color{\Purple}{\textbf{Some important things, we should know}}$

• ${\color{Red} {\cos 0 = 1,\cos \pi = -1,\cos 2\pi = 1,\dots}}$
• ${\color{Blue}{ \text{In general}\: \cos n\pi = (-1)^{n}\: \text{where}\: n=0,1,2,\dots}}$
• ${\color{Magenta} {\sin 0 = 0,\sin \pi = 0,\sin 2\pi = 0,\dots}}$
• ${\color{Green} {\text{In general}\: \sin n\pi = 0\: \text{where}\: n=0,1,2,\dots}}$
• ${\color{Orange} {\sin(\pi-x)=\sin x,\sin (2\pi-x)=-\sin x,\sin(3\pi-x)=\sin x}}$
• ${\color{Teal} {\text{In general}\: \sin (n\pi-x)=(-1)^{n+1}\sin x\: \text{ where} \: n=0,1,2,\dots}}$
•  ${\color{Orchid} {\cos(\pi-x)=-\cos x,\cos (2\pi-x)=\cos x,\cos (3\pi-x)=-\cos x}}$
• ${\color{purple} {\text{ In general}\: \cos (n\pi-x)=(-1)^{n}\cos x \: \text{where}\: n=0,1,2,\dots}}$ 

__________________________________________________________

$f(x) = \sin x$

$f(x) = \cos x$

Visualization:

$$\color{Red}{\textbf{2.Integral & Differential Calculus}}$$

$${\color{Teal}{2.1.\textbf{Some Useful Formulae for Differentiation}}}$$

1. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(c) = 0;c = \text{Constant}$
2. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(x) = 1$
3. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(x^{n}) = nx^{n-1}$
4. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(e^{x}) = e^{x}$
5. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(a^{x}) = a^{x}\log_{e}a$
6. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\log x) = \dfrac{1}{x}$
7. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\log_{a} x) = \dfrac{1}{x}\log_{a}e$
8. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\sin x) = \cos x$
9. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\cos x) = -\sin x$
10. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\tan x) = \sec^{2} x$
11. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\cot x) = -\csc^{2} x$
12. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\csc x) = \csc x \cot x$
13. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\sec x) = \sec x\tan x$
14. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\sin^{-1} x) = \dfrac{1}{\sqrt{1-x^{2}}}$
15. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\cos^{-1} x) = \dfrac{-1}{\sqrt{1-x^{2}}}$
16. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\tan^{-1} x) = \dfrac{1}{1 + x^{2}}$
17. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\cot^{-1} x) = \dfrac{-1}{1 + x^{2}}$
18. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\sec^{-1} x) = \dfrac{1}{x \sqrt{x^{2}-1 }}$
19. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\csc^{-1} x) = \dfrac{-1}{x \sqrt{x^{2}-1}}$
20. $\dfrac{\mathrm{d} }{\mathrm{d} x}(\sqrt{x}) = \dfrac{1}{ 2 \sqrt{x}}$

$${\color{Purple}{2.2.\textbf{Some Useful Formulae for Integration}}}$$

$\textbf{Algebraic Functions}$

1. $\displaystyle{}\int k\: dx = kx + C$
2. $\displaystyle{}\int x^{n}\: dx = \dfrac{x^{n+1}}{n+1} + C$
3. $\displaystyle{}\int (ax + b)^{n}\: dx = \dfrac{(ax + b)^{n+1}}{a(n+1)} + C\:;(\text{for}\: n \neq -1)$
4. $\displaystyle{}\int \dfrac{1}{x}\: dx = \ln x + C\:;\text{(for positive values of $x$ only)}$
5. $\displaystyle{}\int \dfrac{c}{ax + b}\: dx = \dfrac{c}{a}\ln(ax +b) + C$

$\textbf{Exponential Functions}$

1. $\displaystyle{}\int e^{x} dx =  e^{x}+ C$
2. $\displaystyle{}\int a^{x} dx =  \dfrac{a^{x}}{\ln a}+ C$

$\textbf{Logarithm Functions}$

1. $\displaystyle{}\int \ln x\: dx =  x\ln x\: –  x+ C$
2. $\displaystyle{}\int \log_{a} x\: dx =  x\log_{a} x\: – \dfrac{x}{\log a} + C$

$\textbf{Trigonometric Functions}$

$\displaystyle{}\int \sin x\: dx =  -\cos x + C$

                My GATE 2017 rank is 101 and I was targeting IIT Kanpur and IIT Delhi for admission. So in this blog I am writing about my tests experience at IIT Kanpur.

                This year they called around 400 people for the test. They conducted 3 tests(Objective, Programming and Subjective). They conducted Objective and Programming test on 13^th May. On the basis of these 2 tests, they shortlisted around 180 people for Subjective test which was conducted on 14^th May. Among all these 3 tests, Objective test was the easiest one.

•  Objective Test

                Objective test consist of 3 sections(Theory, Systems and Statistics & Data science). Each section was of 50 marks and we have to attempt any 2 sections in 3 hours. There were some fill in the blanks and one line answer questions too and for the questions with options, more than one option can be correct. There was no negative marking. Some of the questions asked in this test are :

1) Theory

i) 8a + 19b = 1. So find out the possible values of a and b.

ii) one dfa was given and we have to choose the correct regular expression for it from the options given

iii) DFA was given and the probability of each link in DFA was also given. So we have to find the probability to reach a particular state using the given 2 strings.

2) Systems

i) A question on semaphore to find initial value of semaphore variable

ii) To find number of hosts in a network given the subnet mask

iii) Difference between clustered and non-clustered indexes

iv) Number of clustered and non-clustered indexes

v) A query is given with EXIST clause and we have to rewrite it without using EXIST

vi) A question on finding accuracy of Branch prediction. A DFA was given for it and program sequence was also given telling whether it will take the branch or not

• Programming Test

                    I am not able to recall questions from Statistics & Data science because I attempted only theory and Systems section. Next was the programming test. There were 4 programs to solve in 3 hours. Marks of each program were 30, 40, 60 and 75. The questions asked where :

1) Question to check anagram ( 40 marks )

2) Starting index of leaves and value of leaves of complete binary tree where given, with the property that parent will have min(left child, right child). We have to return the the contents of indices asked for the tree. ( 30 marks )

for example,

starting index = 3 and

leaves values are 1, 9, 5 and 2

above 2 information will be given, So the tree will be like

    min(1,2)=1

    /               \                                                      1

min(1,9)    min(5,2)          =>                       /     \

  = 1           = 2                                                1        2

 /     \        /     \                                           /   \      /  \

1     9      5      2                                           1     9    5    2

3) There are p prisoners and c ( > p) cell blocks. c and p will be given as input. Also a sorted list of c integers will be given. You are required to choose p integers from c integers such that the minimum distance between adjacent prisoners is maximized. You have to output this minimum distance. ( 60 marks )

4) We have to find addition factors of a number in lexicographic order for n<15. ( 75 marks )

for example if n=4 then output will be

1 1 1 1 

1 1 2

1 3

2 2

• Subjective Test

                     Finally there was a subjective test similar to objective one. We have to attempt questions from any 2 sections in 3 hours. There were 3 questions from theory and 3 questions from Systems. Questions asked where :

1) Theory

i)  

a) if degree of vertices < 3, then prove that the graph will be union of vertex disjoint path and cycle.

b) Graph Matching was explained. Let S and R be the matching graph, then a new graph G=(S-R) ∪ (R-S), will be union of vertex disjoint path and cycle. Also prove that the cycle obtained will be of even length.

ii) Consider a grammar G with productions P. Let INIT(G) be the grammar with production P' such that

    P' = P ∪ ( A->B | such that A->BC belongs to P ) ∪ ( A->epsilon | such that A->b belongs to P )

    prove that:

a) Prefix(G) is subset of INIT(G)

b) INIT(G) is subset of Prefix(G)

iii) Algorithm to find strongly connected components in the graph

2) Systems

i) Question on semaphore. A program was given which was incrementing variable y. 8 processes where allowed to execute the program. Initial value of y was given. We have to find possible values of y after all 8 processes complete their execution.

ii) Information about main memory and cache was given. We have to find number of bits for tag and index for direct mapped, set associative and fully associative cache. We also have to find cache capacity including tag overhead for each cache. Also explain the working of each cache mechanism.

iii) I didn't understood this question.

                                I have written as many questions that I recall. If you guys remember any more questions especially for objective one, write in the comment, I will add it.

Verdict :-  Selected :)

BARC SCIENTIST OCES/DGFS 2023

Welcome to 2024. The first job notification of this year is BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Center)  for the post of Scientist -B whose notification is out.

• Important Dates:  All dates are tentative

  Commencement of the Online Application Process for OCES/DGFS-2024	30th December 2023
  Last date for Registration for Online Application	14 February, 2024
  Online Examination	16th March & 17th March 2024

• Application fee and Date of Birth for Eligibility of Age

• Eligibility Criteria: (Information technology is not allowed) 

• Selection in 2 ways either based on GATE 22/23/24 or performance based on a written test followed by an interview.

• Detailed Advertisement

• BROCHURE OCSE / DGFS 2024

• Apply here

This year:

1. BARC 2024 gate cutoff $812$
2. BARC 2024 CBT cutoff $107$

Hi everyone !!

Congratulations to all, who are shortlisted for BARC CS Interview. Interviews are starting from 1st December, and book your slots for interview as soon as possible. Now, in this short period I would like to share few things which you can pick and revise for interview process. 

1. Read previous interview experiences.  My Interview Experience https://gateoverflow.in/blog/9985/barc-cs-interview-experience-2019 . 
2. Revise GATE syllabus thoroughly once, you can use your GATE notes. Now focus will  be on assertion-reason rather solving numerical questions. Why threading when multiprocessing is already there ? How will you design a firewall to stop a set of IP addresses ? What is the need of pipelining ? What other kinds of Databases are available ? Can you list some compiler optimizations and why they are used ? Use mutex to make H2O in synchronization ? which algorithm will you prefer when people are submitting forms on BARC website and we need to sort them based on name ? How priority queues are implemented ? What is CPU clock speed and what factors affect CPU clock speed ? Write a program to find whether two rectangles are overlapping or not ?
3. Pick 4-5 favorite subjects and do extra revision. I used GeeksforGeeks articles during my preparations. They are effective also they are written in a very practical and comparative aspect. Example : https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/mutex-vs-semaphore/
4. Try to retain basic pseudo codes in mind, like bakery algorithm, Peterson solution, congestion control alogrithm, Longest common subsequence etc. 
5. Try to touch those topics also which you have ignored partially or completely during GATE, because they ask question on them also.Like, what is CISC architecture, Symmetric and asymmetric multiprocessing, What are inodes and how free space are managed, etc.

Feel free to reach me for doubts during preparation !!!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhilash-bhardwaj-6000b7b4/ or

 https://www.quora.com/profile/Abhilash-Bhardwaj-3

All the best !!

Abhilash Bhardwaj

Scientific Officer(C)/ 2019-Batch BARC

GO Classroom for M.Tech: https://classroom.gateoverflow.in/course/view.php?id=17

GATE is one exam where your result is not entirely proportional to the "no. of hours you put in". Some of you might be in final years and giving GATE with hardly any preparation. But based on previous year stats I can say that a good percentage of top 200 will be people like you especially if you are from a "non spoon-fed" college. Anyway for this blog post I'm only considering those who have prepared well and now wondering "what to do".

I have been quite vocal against test series. This is mainly due to the really bad or at least useless questions in many of them. But if you have less experience in solving technical questions you should definitely give at least 5 full length tests -- even same previous year papers are fine if you have not seen a good number of those solutions. The main points to note here are

1. Solving all questions you know in 3 hours
2. Determining how to optimize time -- if some questions are really time consuming you should skip it if this can save you time for other easier ones.
3. Avoiding careless mistakes -- in actual GATE you might lose some marks like this but your aim must be to restrict it to less than 5.
4. After an exam think how you could have got 10 marks extra -- which all topics lost you marks, how to avoid careless mistakes etc.

Now, other than the tests I would recommend you to spend more time thinking and less time on standard resources (strict no to non-standard ones :P). For each subject, each topic and each sub-topic think what all are the important points -- not down if required. Think what type of questions can come from those. You can use GATE syllabus for help here and I assume you have gone through most previous year papers. You should spend less time on books now -- because you cannot carry books to exam hall.

Once you do the above for most/all the topics you will surely get confidence to do well in GATE. So far I have been telling to score 90+, 80+, 70+ etc. but in actual GATE your only focus must be to get every question "you know" as correct. Do not count the marks and get tensed. Instead if you find an unknown questions be happy that you saved time and this can be used for other questions. Remember that in GATE there will be many new questions and some of them will be rather easy if you read them properly.

Luck is a good guy - but it cannot save you a lot. Just with luck one cannot get a better batting average than Sachin Tendulkar. Similarly, just with luck one cannot beat a well prepared person in GATE. So far in the last 4 years I have hardly seen any good guy/girl miss out on a top rank. Some of them who got a high 3 figure rank due to bad luck/tension then went on to do well in Interviews and got to good IITs. So, there is nothing to get tensed for you. If you have prepared well and in the right way, you will definitely do well in GATE. Just focusing on these small points can make sure that you do not miss out on vital marks. Good luck!!!

https://www.isro.gov.in/sites/default/files/computer_science_be003.pdf

Greetings to all, I am Animesh. I have appeared in GATE 2021 and my gate score was 742 with a rank of 447 General Cat. Here I am posting various questions asked from me in different interviews for MS/M.Tech Research courses.

Note: My interest lies in Machine Learning and AI, that’s why I prepared Linear algebra along with basics of ML for these interviews.

1. IISC Quantum Technology M.Tech interview questions : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E9Ta_1zm8nvktaWcKOchMDTh3BWQ-kf2KGilubRlpJc/edit?usp=sharing [This was a new course started by IISC this year(2021), and I had no prior experience in this Quantum Tech field, so I appeared in this interview just for the sake of experience]
2. IIT Bombay MS TA interview questions : https://docs.google.com/document/d/15A4SsQsc5diSsP6gxR73joAY8yUo6mVGXcYHk6Yy-nQ/edit?usp=sharing
3. IIT Madras MS interview questions : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jDsTDYyz7khijZr30PvOmdEup7a5cDy-EW1QYVIYzT4/edit?usp=sharing

I will be adding few other interview experiences(IISC CDS, IIT Bombay MS RAP etc) soon.

For 2021 Selection Criteria for IISc CDS: GATE score 70% + 30% written test and interview

Written Test Questions [Total Marks: 40]:    (Time: 1 hour 30 minutes)

There were 5 MCQ Questions, each carrying 5 Marks [5x5=25] from the domain:

• Linear Algebra (Especially, basic properties of different matrices and eigenvalues)
• Probability (Classical)
• Combinatorics
• Graph Plotting

There were 2 Programming Questions [5+10=15]:

1. Check if the input array is in strictly non-decreasing order or not. [5 Marks]
2. The input sample Matrix M is of size n x n. Given, Filter Matrix W is of size m x m. Perform Convolution and find out the output matrix C of size (n-2) x (n-2). [10 Marks]

Interview Experience: https://gateoverflow.in/blog/13537/iisc-bangalore-tech-course-work-interview-experience-2021

ISRO is inviting applications from engineering graduates for the post of Scientists/Engineers. http://www.isac.gov.in/CentralBE-2017A/advt.jsp. And the exam to be held on 17th of December!!

Hello , my name is Bodhisattwa Dasgupta . This year I got 66.29 Marks and AIR 123 in GATE (CS) – 2021 , and this was my first attempt in GATE. It’s not the best rank , but decent enough to fetch me a good IIT hopefully ( hence the title...)

My Background:

I’m currently a final-year student , pursuing my B.Tech in CS at Future Institute of Technology , Kolkata. It’s a Local Private College here in Kolkata which was established just in 2015. I never was a good student at anything throughout my school days and most of my college life. I remember in 11^th  class Mid-Year exam I failed every subject other than English and CS , the amount of judgement I got from my classmates and teachers were tremendous.

For those who are wondering , I attempted JEE Mains 2 Times, 1^st time I got ~1 Lac Rank and in my 2^nd attempt also I got ~70k Rank. So nothing to write home about. All throughout my academics I absolutely despised subjects like Physics , Chemistry ..etc , the ONLY thing that made sense to me and I enjoyed was CS ( in school-life it was basic coding and DS stuff.. ) and bits and pieces of Maths. 

So naturally I choose CSE over other branches in better colleges and this was the BEST decision of my life.

My GATE Story:

I first heard about GATE from my friends in 2^nd Sem and then after a few days of research I decided to prepare seriously for the same. The idea of studying CS from Top IITs intrigued me a lot and not just that , an All-India based exam based fully on CS got me very excited. 

I never had any Coaching till this point in my life , but since I decided to prepare seriously I enrolled @ ACE Coaching back in Jan 2019.

But unfortunately for the entire year ( from 2019 to Dec 2019 ) I only attended the classes and didn’t put much effort myself , as a result in Late Dec 2019 , I found myself at a very bad position , I had all my class-notes but couldn’t recall any concepts. (MISTAKE #1)

So from Jan 2020 , I decided that I’ll put consistent effort from now on , and try to get a sub-500 Rank. I made a time-table and started preparing accordingly. For each subject I used to give ~2 weeks , and in that 2 weeks first I used to learn the concept , then look at examples and then finally solve the PYQs in parallel. Using this approach I more or less got over with my syllabus by July 2020.

In the month of July I wrote my First Full-Length Test and I got ~62 Marks in that. (  The test was an easy one.  ) , But here I noted that I scored very less in aptitude section , but I ignored it. And I continued to ignore Aptitude for the remainder of my preparation ( MISTAKE #2 ) , why this is a mistake you’ll see later on.

From Aug onwards I decided to do revision and I did so by solving all the PYQs again, this time From GO-PDF. ( Previously did from ME Book ) , and this blew my mind. For each and every problem , extremely detailed solutions were available at GO along with necessary references . And this not only helped me to Learn more BUT ALSO helped in developing a habit of reading standard papers/articles/wikis/books. Which I feel is going to be very useful later down the line for M.Tech.

From Sept onwards I started writing tests more often and regularly. After writing the tests I used to rectify my mistakes.

My marks in Test-Series are:( Avg / High /  Low )

• Made-Easy = (74 / 87 / 47)
• ACE = (82 / 91 / 68)
• Applied-GATE = (78 / 89 / 65)

Looking at my performance I assumed that I’d surely get a sub-100 Rank ( MISTAKE #3 ) . This mindset would prove detrimental in my preparation. 

Things were going pretty good until in Mid-Jan we tested +ve for COVID , while it didn’t affect much but after that point there was a noticeable dip in my test performance. Still I was fairly confident with my preparation.

During the GATE Exam:

I got allotted Set-2 which was a bit lengthy and quite different from previous years. First Question was the Little-Endian One , I never solved such questions before but I knew the concept clearly so was able to get it Correct . Same thing happened for the next 5-6 Questions. I was able to solve correctly but took lots of time and my fear-level was increasing as the Question types were pretty uncommon. 

After going through the first 25 Questions , I had only attempted 13 Questions and left 12 totally. Now Panic started and every negative thoughts came to mind .. “Will I even cross the 50 Marks threshold?” , “Only 2hrs left , this year gone to waste….” ...such thoughts. (MISTAKE #4) . Since I already had made some assumptions about my performance earlier (see Mistake-3), this was exponentially more difficult. 

Because of this Panic-mode , I made mistakes which I could’ve easily avoided otherwise.

Lastly , since I didn't do much prep for aptitude , this really showed in my exam. As I only got 9/15 in Aptitude . Even IF I had 13/15 in aptitude , then probably I would’ve been in Top 60. This is my Biggest Regret YET. 

And In retrospect ,It’s quite Ironical that if I didn’t make assumptions about my performance before the exam , then I wouldn’t have panicked as hard and would’ve been able to meet my expectations. 

Conclusion and Advice for future Aspirants:

• Does Test Series Marks and Actual Marks have any correlation? Yes and No .Don’t make assumptions based on test-series marks . If you are not getting good marks , don’t be under confident , analyze and move on. If you are getting good marks , don’t be overconfident , analyze and move on.  But certainly if you are performing well in Tests , that’s great and indicative of good preparation.
• Revision should be done consistently , otherwise not possible to retain all the concepts clearly. Even if for 10min , just go through your own notes and that is good enough.
• NEVER Ignore aptitude , because it can make or break your exam. I ignored and paid the price . So take necessary steps and don’t make the same mistake that I did.
• How many Hours should I prepare?  Doesn’t matter.  But consistency should be maintained even if its 1hr a day.
• Learn to manage pressure . I didn’t handle pressure during the exam well and suffered the consequences.

Still at the end of the day , I’m quite satisfied with my rank and planning to join IIT-Madras or IIT-Kharagpur. My learning journey has just started and I still have a long way to go.

GATE taught me that your college / background etc NOTHING MATTERS . The only thing that matters is your own Will to Learn and Self-Belief. If you believe in your own ability and put in the necessary effort , then you can surely get it.

I know I don’t have the best rank , but if you have any questions or doubts regarding preparation , please feel free to ask. I’ll try my best to answer.

Thanks for reading.

#Feb23  #Interview Experience   #Chennai

Hello friends !! Good morning..
This post is for those who may give ISRO interview in the coming months . I am going to share my interview experience in the below lines . I will try to cite the questions that were being asked to me as far as my memory goes.

My interview was scheduled at 3rd from the last. So I had lunch and Friday prayers then waited patiently and tried to stay calm and confident. It was roughly 4:45 pm when my name was called for the interview. So here the experience goes(I am mentioning the questions along with the answers which I gave) :

Interviewer : Introduce urself
Me : Introduced myself to all.Told about my graduation college and about my current job i.e. in BSNL.

Interviewer : Tell me about the subjects u have learnt in ur B.tech
Me : I mentioned Mathematics , Computer Architecture and Theory of Computation

Head Interviewer : What is Flynn's classification of architecture.Name them.
Me : Answered each of the types .

Interviewer : How does out of order execution occurs in pipe lined environment ?
Me : Answered.

Interviewer : What are the types of the hazards which are there in pipelining ?
Me : Answered.

Interviewer : What are the different types of data hazards ?
Me : Answered with elaboration.

Interviewer : What are the ways to reduce or eliminate control(branch hazards) ?
Me : Answered with elaboration.

Then questions on Maths were asked.They are as follow :

Interviewer : Explain about lattice.
Me : Explained properly

Interviewer : Some mathematical modelling problem.
Me : With a bit of hint from their side , I could come to the conclusion and answered rightly that it was related to bipartite graph.

Interviewer : What is Taylor's Theorem ?
Me : I clearly admitted to them that I was unable to recall as I studied about it way back in 2nd semester.

Interviewer : What is bijective and surjective function ?
Me : Explained

Then some questions about Theory Of Computation.

Interviewer : What are the types of grammars ?
Me : Answered and elaborated [ Type-0 to Type-3 ].

Interviewer : What is the practical use of regular and context free grammars ?
Me : Answered.

Other interviewer : Which programming language u r comfortable in ?
Me : I was very straightforward in this and told "C" bcoz I do not know each and every things of OOPS in C++ and also as far as Python is concerned , I know the basics of it only.

Interviewer : What r the command line arguments in int main()
Me : Answered.

Interviewer : To read or write from an arbitrary location from file , which function we need to use ?
Me : Answered(It was fseek() function)..

Interviewer : What does ls command do ?
Me : Answered.

Then some project related questions are asked regarding working and some basic terminologies behind it .

Interviewer : Tell me the pros and cons of collaborative and content based filtering .
Me : Answered .[My project was based on content based filtering]

Then the head interviewer took notice of the fact that I know six languages via the bio data form that they provided to fill prior to the interview.

Head Interviewer [In an appreciating tone] : How do you know so many languages ?
Me : Explained the reason behind each of them.

Finally some non tech question to conclude.

Interviewer : You are currently working in BSNL and that too in ur home state.. So what has made you think to join ISRO ?
Me : As a responsible citizen of our country , we are obliged to serve anywhere throughout the country.

Interviewer(Counter question) : That BSNL also does..So why ISRO ?
Me : Beyond doubt BSNL is also obliged to serve countrywide.But as far as ISRO is concerned , it is based on space science which has wider implications on the society.

[To add on] I got the inspiration to work in ISRO from Honble Late Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam with whom I interacted personally while I was in Class 10th..His zeal , simplicity and enthusiasm to work selflessly for the country has inspired me to move on..And hence if I am given a chance to serve ISRO in case I am selected , then I will give my best to serve my nation and the society.

The interviewers appreciated my answer and responded positively.The interview lasted for around half an hour.[By and large , others had around 15-20 minutes of interview].

In a nutshell , this interview was one of the nice interviews I ever had irrespective of the result which is yet to come..Though I look forward to it positively as the reaction of the interviewers was positive as far as I have felt.

All the best to you all..N plz pray for me as well so that I get selected in ISRO finally..

Guess most of you are eagerly waiting for response sheets to be out. It can come anytime but can also take a few days. Anyway just wanted to tell a few things.

1. Your GATE rank may get you an IISc/IIT seat
2. GATE is not the only exam for doing Master studies; IIITH, BITS are very good and so do CMI, ISI, IIST etc. I dont know how many even applied for JEST exam which is next week. This exam can get you a seat in even IISc. While many people are arguing for the imaginary questions and their solutions, smart people are eagerly preparing for this exam.
3. Some people continuously take stupid decisions in their life -- I'm telling from a real life example I'm seeing now. This is your life, decide wisely. All the information you can get from Google but in the end you should use your "brain" to process them.
4. Dropping is not for everyone - last year I made a video explicitly saying who all should definitely NOT DROP. Interestingly even those who liked those videos went on to drop. Anyway it is your or your parent's money, and your time.
5. Once rank predictor is up, I’ll be adding some real world (open source) assignments. It’ll be hard but definitely worth doing whether you are a GATE topper or not. Once you get experienced with real world stuff, you’ll be valuable like an IIScian or IITian.