DISCLAIMER : I have scored AIR-3550 in GATE 2022. Read at your own risk.


It was 2 hour exam consisting of 120 questions. It was my last and third attempt.
It was strikingly similar to AccCccEee mock test series except it didn't have discrete maths and was much simpler in terms of calculation oriented questions. Calculator was provided on screen. BARC upgraded their exam software this time finally now it looks more polished and had less lag when switching questions frequently. Please try out the official mock software on their website once.

I attempted 63/100.

Time control is the most crucial factor as you will only get about 72 seconds per question. This looks really scary but don’t think like this if you get  55+ question right you will make it. This fact reduces our worries because now we get almost 120 seconds per question almost double liberty.

I appeared for the aforementioned test series and gave all tests 600 question total. Apart from revision and practice I discovered something else. I noticed that I am spending average 20 mins on the questions that I am not attending. I drastically reduced this in actual exam and I was able to save some serious crucial time.

HOW ?

I immediately skipped a question if a little trying was needed or it had any sort of calculation including c programming questions.

Now why calculation... even if we practiced well and know the question in and out.
The reason is  because initially some calculations look straight forward but once we start to solve them changing and converting millisecond to nanosecond and Mbps to Bytes per second lot of time is consumed and these questions are most error prone. So better if they are attended in last.

Believe me I know how it feels to let go a simple question like that but you have to say to that question “you are my friend and I am not leaving you, I will solve you in the end, please let me go”.

Only when you say this the question will leave you in peace otherwise it will distract you throughout the paper and will consume lot of time even if you solve it successfully.


Due to this one misplanning in  my practice test  by the time I reached the 100th question
I had barely any time left for revision of rechecking. Because I was fighting with every question that I saw.

ATTEMPT STRATEGY


In the first 75+ minutes I had solved 45+ question that I was fairly confident and had 45+ minutes left on the clock for the remaining questions.

Now I did not went to the unattempted questions straight because from my past experience I know that revising and even finding 2,3 silly mistakes can change your outcome.

Unlike gate we cannot re-solve question completely for 100% confirmation as time is very less. I checked the tricky points like what is actually asked TRUE/FALSE, CORRECT/ INCORRECT and all calculation questions( everyone has their own pitfalls ).

Once I was done with this process I had a solid 48+ question with me( i like to think this way,keeps me motivated). And by seeing the question again I had a good idea about the difficulty level of the exam. Why only these 15-20 question will tell difficulty level because everyone else will be solving the same 45+ question that you just solved so only these are the question that will decide the merit.

Later I will tell you through an example how judging these 15-20 questions will affect your merit.

I concluded that the paper was easy this time and cutoff will surely go up so I need to push a little bit further. Now I am left with 45+ mins time and and has 15-20 question to solve.

CLASSIFICATION OF THESE 2nd ROUND QUESTION AND HOW TO CHOOSE THEM.

3-4 question were the ones in which I was able to eliminate 2 options and had no clue about the remaining options, I gave them a second look re-thought them and left them because I will only take the chance if the remaining 10+ question GO according to my plan.

Why multiple views to questions that I am confused about…. because I believe that our subconscious continually works to find solutions to them and sometime an approach/formula suddenly pops up while you are solving something else.

In the next 30+ mins I attempted calculation oriented questions and some tough question that I thought I might crack if given a little more time or by brute force or option checking.

When last 5 minutes were left I had attempted 58-59 questions. In the remaining time I once again saw those questions and took chance and attempted 3-4 of them.

That’s how I did it and I do not know if this strategy is good or will it work. All I can say that it was a dynamic strategy that I arrived upon after solving 30+ full length GATE MOCKS and 6+ BARC test series.

ABOUT THE EXAM

Overall questions were simple in nature not requiring much in-depth calculation or memorization like last year.

Last Year the cutoff plunged to 129/300 I scored 80/300 marks in that attempt.
BARC 2021 had some serious question on Computer network and COA which actually ate up all my time.

I found the paper to be easy, not even moderate. According to me a Moderate paper is
when there is a proper mix of questions and the difficult questions are time
taking but somewhat doable, but if the questions are absurdly tough then no body
does them and they do not count towards final merit.

WHAT I COULD HAVE IMPROVED

I could have done….

  1. Software Engineering Questions (2-3)
  2. Cyclomatic complexity (1)
  3. Probability and Combinatory (1)
  4. DLD counter question (1)
  5. More polished first pass I really could have manually counted combinatorics question.

 

It was a pleasant experience. A race where every second counts too much thrill.

MY ADVICE TO PARTICIPANTS

Make sure your display is free of any marks and is bright enough I lost a GATE question because there was a dot on screen but not in the question. I did my calculation accordingly and arrived at the wrong answer.

eg what I saw 53.2 actually it was 532…..

Ask the invigilator for the same, in BARC control software there is a REASSIGN tab they can simply assign you a new system. My display was flickering so I asked and got a new system assigned.

The invigilators were some kids in their early 20s and they were gossiping almost in my ear so I told them Politely(only voice not face) “Madam I am getting disturbed”. They were nice people so they moved away but did not stop gossiping.
 

I encourage participants to speak up if they are facing any discomfort or any system issues as a lot depends on this exam.
 

Coming back to why analysing the difficulty level makes a difference.

Last year I appeared for the NIELIT-STQC exam, based on the last years score, scoring anything less that 100/120 meant no selection somehow the topper scored 112 / 120.

Despite having good attempts I pushed my luck and attempted 110/120 without realizing that paper was actually tough this time and cutoff will come down.

Day before yesterday the results came out I scored 0.4 % less and missed the cutoff .One question was 0.8 % weightage. I lost 12 question in negative marking because I pushed too hard even attempting the ECE and EE questions, if I had analyzed that paper was tough I would have stopped at 90+ questions and would have made the cutoff.

Today a random uncle came to drop off his daughter as I had reached the Centre before everyone he striked a conversation with me and I told him how missed the cutoff by one question. He was very straightforward and said it to my face that I was incompetent and I should focus on why I lost that 1 marks. He said that these are all excuse to shy away from working hard and he truly believes that 1 rupees = 100 paisa everywhere everytime and luck has no place in this world.

I should have told him how Abhinav Bindra sir missed his 2004 GOLD MEDAL in shooting because the floor he was standing upon was made of wood tiles and every time he was shooting and adjusting the recoil of his gun, his feet were displacing the wooden tiles underneath and he could not figure out why was he was missing the target.

There is a documentary on this “Legends Live on” on youtube.

I believe that luck has a little part to play and sometimes despite best efforts things may not converge.

So beware before engaging in such conversation….

Then I met other guy from banda district who I had met last year in the same exam he scored AIR 1332 last year and this year he got AIR 532( seems like his hardwork paid off).

At the end the BARC representative came to ask for exam experience I told him how last year the electricity went off at AXIS-COLLEGE CNB and everyone lost 12+ minutes because the clock did not stop.

Before asking anything further he asked did I qualify ? as soon as I said NO he brushed off and said what I am saying is absolutely false and something like this can never happen.

Too much for one day maybe I am coming full circles I guess.

 

I am posting this early because later it will not be as useful.

I really thought not to post  because everyone else is a competitor and people generally post after they have succeeded but I really believe that even the toppers do not know what really worked because I have never seen anyone claiming before hand and predicting their rank everyone believes a certain tactics will surely work and they place their bets on that.

Everyone is equally nervous and has their own doubts.

I had UPPCL on 1st April, BARC on 2nd April and NIELIT-NIC on 3rd April which is tomorrow.

Why am I not studying for tomorrow…. Just has MS Dhoni said if I have studied all year long then one day will not make a difference and if I have not studied then also one day will not make any difference, so I am chilling and writing this post. Without any guilt or fear.

 

Memory based question.
Cyclomatic Complexity 1 ques
Paging 2-3 ques including 2 level page table
Software engineering testing
Chip Select logic Manchester encoding, baud rate bit rate
Java, OOPS concept 3-4 question
Very tricky programming question with lots of << shift operation
MUX Equation through comb circuit.
TOC Regular Language only 2 ques
Pipelining Speedup
CN security & encryption(Not in gate syllabus)
Hamiltonian and Euler circuit 1 ques
greedy job sequencing 1 ques
Bankers Algorithm 1 ques
BST creating post order given
SQL queries 2 ques
2NF but not 3NF 1 ques

K-map

Will add more question as I remember.

Happy to help. God be with you.

posted Apr 2, 2022
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