I guess many of you will be tensed. But you should not be. GATE exam won't need tension or memory or anything other than presence of mind. It just checks what all you know. All you need to do is to answer the ones you know, ensure no silly mistakes, read and understand questions properly. If you have seen many previous GATE questions, you already know how questions can be twisted- there won't be more twists than those now. Some points:

1. Reading questions take time - do not rush to solve before doing this properly. Quite often answer becomes easy if we read the question properly or repeatedly.

2. For system subjects like CO, CN etc. where a big question desciption is given, never try to match that to a problem you already know. Rather apply the concepts you know based on the given problem description.

3. Pipelining is an important concept- not just in COA but also in Networks. Imagining how pipeline works helps.

4. Simple questions on probability will come - beware of conditional probability and avoid silly mistakes. Never try to map it to a solved problem and instead try solving fresh.

5. 100% accurate methos like Truth Table should be used more.

6. Options will be less- this is good as usually options brings less marks.

7. No guess work: well with 60% above numericals and no negative marks for them, I think you can safely put some numerical value for integer numerical questions even if you have no idea of the question (like simply putting value 4 in last year paper would have made 2-3 answers correct). But for theory subjects like Algorithms, TOC, with negative marks, never do any guess work as quite often intuition gets negative.

8. If you hae not understood decidability in TOC, just skip its problem in exam. It is just 2 marks maximum- you do not need to score 100. Same for any topic you skipped.

9. For many questions with options, even if you do not know answer, option elimination might work. Do this at end if you have enough time. Option elimination if done properly won't bring negatives. 

10. Sometime aptitude might be tough- if so just be happy, because normalization will raise your marks then. For example, 2016-set 1 aptitude was real tough.  Some one with 6/15 could get to top 50 also.

11. I again say exam being easy/difficult is irrelevant. What matters is how you perform relative to others. So, for those who knows subjects difficult exam is always better.

Something personal

I do have some ranks in mind for some people every year. Quite often they are true and sometimes some people get lower ranks and some people gets better ranks. But these are really small matter for me, and what really matters is how well you have prepared which is already done. GATE is not the end- it is an entrance. Suppose you are good enough only to get to 10,000 rank and by chance you get to IISc., most probably you end up losing to others. Similarly, if you are good enough to be in top 100 but end up not so -- whatever you do, you have a real advantage. So, do not really stress for that "rank" now. Just show how good you are.

After exam

Many people think life ends after GATE. This is completely wrong even if you are in top 100. Many of you have been repeatedly teling here "after GATE, I'll contribute to the community etc.". But have you seen any previous year toppers doing that here? Of course some do- but not anywhere close to the level of aspirants like Habib. You might not know why but having been in their shoes I can understand their stress and situation while doing Masters and I had never expected them to do so. That is the fact, qualifying GATE with top rank is not the end of life- it is only the start.

So, after exam you can discuss the answers or stop thinking about it. I have no comment on either. But important fact is unless you are getting to top 100, interview preparation matters. If you see last year blogs you can see how some people mastered this - they basically cleared all possible interviews. In the interview basic skills, subject knowledge all matters. But preparation is different from GATE - breadth can be very less, and depth needs to be more. Being in High Performance Area, I shall provide some insights in to this area- which will be useful for those interested in systems. "Interested" is not something you might understand now- so I shall also try to make this clear. So, the thing is take GATE as a step- not as an end. It is never the end for good or bad.

 

Best of Luck

posted Feb 10, 2017
6
Like
1
Love
0
Haha
0
Wow
0
Angry
0
Sad

4 Comments