Hi,
Everyone who prepares for any exam needs to have some to plan of action and has to execute it in order to crack it.Let me annotate it with a quote:
“It’s not the plan that’s important, it’s the planning.” Dr. Gramme Edwards
Here is the plan which I followed during my preparation:
I started my preparation from June 2015.I spent 5-6 days reading toppers blog and tried to understand their strategy..and what I concluded is that they all relied on self-study and standard books.I didn’t join any classroom coaching and decided to do the self study..and trust me self-study is best..It increases your knowledge a lot ..I still cherish the time which I spent in reading standard books.
By mid-October I had completed syllabus.After that, I just focused on revision and tests.Initially, I started with subject wise tests of Made Easy ..soon I realized that it was time to focus on full-length tests rather than subject wise tests.So last three months ie November 15 to Jan 16 I spent time in revising , practising questions( from std books,TIFR questions),giving mocks ,analyzing them and strengthening the weak areas
I used to keep track of marks which I was getting in those tests.After giving mock I used to list my mistakes..and discuss those questions on gateoverflow..Giving mocks is important as that boosts your confidence..but blindly following them is bad.And yes one should think of mocks when he/she is done with all previous year questions.
I used to maintain diary recording what I studied on daily basis..like if I studied calculus from 1pm-2pm I used to record it .At the end of day, I used to go through diary and see how much I studied that day.This thing was needed to keep me motivated.Motivation and regularity are the basic ingredients to make yourself study worth.
Online sources which were helpful in preparation:
nptel lectures ,
gatecse FB group and gateoverflow(awesome site for gate cs preparation)
https://gateetude.wordpress.com
http://www.engineering.careers360.com/articles/gate-2015-topper-interview-ravi-shankar-mishra-air-1-in-computer-science-engineering
geeksforgeeks
Thank you!!!
Pooja Palod
AIR 51,2016