Hello readers,
Opened Gate Overflow after almost 4 years, thought of writing something about my journey, experience and some milestones i went through in last 4-5 years. Something about my journey, trying to make it short and precise:
Here we go,
Completed Btech in 2020 from a tier3 college and I started preparing for gate exam in my third year with the aim of getting into some good IIT. In my final year despite working hard i got a rank of 1388, i was not satisfied and thought of giving it one more try and in 2021 i achieved AIR 338. And with obc quota, I got admission in IIT-B in 3rd round.
Gate Journey
In my first attempt i completed almost all the PYQs once and i prepared notes and covered all the subjucts, revised all the notes more than once, still didn't get good enough rank, Reason: Comfort zone and my strategy, I was too much focusing on accuracy and covering left out topics and just revision without any practise, And as a result I was not able to attempt GATE exam within 3 hrs and I was not even able to look at more than 15 questions.
Improvement and 2nd Attempt
In my 2nd attempt, with gate result and analysis i was aware about my mistakes, my accuracy was good but number of questions attempted were less. Now the task was to increase speed. I covered the remaining side topics and started solving GAte PYQs again. I worked on 3 things:
Speed, accuracy and Questions Selection: To increase speed i reduced my time to attempt any test. I started attempting full length tests in less than 2.5 hours. Initially my attempts were less around 35-40 questions and later it went upto attempting 62-65, but i was hard on time, not a second more than dedicated 2.5 hours. To optimise Question selection i started attempoting question paper in 2 passes, to solve easy questions first and score maximum in less time.
Not giving any hard advice on what to do and what not,bcoz there isn't just one way to achieve good rank. A strategy might work for someone, might not work for someone else. ]
Back then i asked many rankers about there opinion on test series, frew were like:
Soumya (AIR around 120): FLTs/mocks are just for temperament, I took 5-6 tests and more focus on revising concepts.
Sachin(AIR 33): take as many tests as you can, only FLTs and mock tests.. (50+ tests taken)
In my attempt i just revised, it was hard for me to pick the pen and do some practice, just took 5 or 6 FLTs in Jan. But in 2nd attempt i took 55+ full length mock tests with proper analysis.
After Gate
2021 to 2023 I completed my Mtech from IIT Bombay, Got campus placement in Walmart. I worked in Walmart as SDE for almost 2 years, then I joined Microsft and continuing my jouney with microsoft.
Thankful to Gate Overflow
A very big thank to Gate Overflow community, it helped me a lot. The open discussions with some of the brilliant guys and even the journey afterwards, I met many of the gate overflow contributors in college, some went to iisc iitm and still in touch with many.
Aspirants, Don't doubt, don't get confused, GATE is totally worth it.
Wishing you all the best with your Journey.
PS: Admins/moderators, feel free to suggest me edits or proper tags.
