Recent posts in Preparation Advice

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As an engineer we have habit of waking up in the morning 9am or even more late.

So what happen when you get morning session??

1. Lots of Silly mistakes.

2. Mind is not able to think.

3.As per habit our mind not allow us to sleep early,and have to wake up early in the morning around 6am as per centre distance from our living. So biological clock totally disturb.Means Thinking capacity disturbed.

4. Apart from this you may face lots of problem for your daily activities.

To set biological clock we need Atleast 21 days.So start waking up early around 6am in the morning.It will definitely helps you. If we consider 70years of our life we will waste around 24years by sleeping ,4years by eating like that way we have only 12 years effective time.So utilize it properly and be different from others.

Start Giving the exams. Don't think that first complete the reading and then go for test.always give 100marks test only even You haven't completed syllabus. Try to give atleast 1test within 3days.Try to give test Within the time slot as per gate2018,So that on the day of exam you will feel you are giving exam from home only.

If you are getting less marks in test series don't be disappointed.Try to improve day by day. Original gate paper is nothing but modified version Previous year Gate questions + standard book questions with minor modification or copy paste  + 10% to 15% Hard one.

How to avoid silly mistakes ??

Silly mistakes happen because of disturbed mind, Mismatch in speed of thinking and speed of writing and reading, Not having proper way of solving questions,etc. Give test and try to find out why you are doing silly mistakes??

As per my calculation previous year gate questions are sufficient for getting 50marks and sometimes even more.But there is way of solving previous Gate questions. One of the best way is Go through Gateoverflow previous year  questions and each alternative answers and each and every  comment after answers.Solve Previous year gate questions Atleast twice.

I'll write more points when I'll get Time. These are points what I think should be considered and this is the perfect time to apply it. Best of Luck for Gate 2018.
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I need some guidance for an upcoming Nielit Scientist-B Interview .

How Should I begin my preparation...and what are the major recommendations  that I must seriously focus while studies...

Kindly throw some light on important tips regarding subjective knowledge and even how to hold a tight grip over resume .

Thank you in advance :) :)
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Schedule for experienced ( CS students, or who knows Algo/DS):

http://gateoverflow.in/?qa=blob&qa_blobid=13198584675035433606

Schedule for beginners:

http://gateoverflow.in/?qa=blob&qa_blobid=15159947004400658583

Some important tips:

1. Gateoverflow pdf is must to be followed. Don't practice from previous 2 years, take them as tests. Mark good ques while practicing. Revision is most important. Toppers do 3-4 times.

2. Atleast take 6-7 full test in Jan. Don't take test in last 3 days. Learn skipping ques.

3. 1 or 2 onsite test will be helpful. Ignore if you have to travel alot to take it.

4. Best motivation is your own daily improvements. Rest are fake or temporary.

5. Luck plays good role. So, do good deeds and earn it.

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Hello all the future GATE aspirants out there. I will be talking here about some few points regarding GATE and the counseling process post exam.

First of all, lets see how competitive the exam is.
So, here are the marks (out of 100) corresponding to some of the ranks in GATE 2017.

AIR 1 - 86.26
AIR 50 - 73.09
AIR 101 - 69.90
AIR 200 - 65.26
AIR 302 - 62.93
AIR 401 - 61.12
AIR 500 - 59.31

So do you see the competition? All you need is just 4.64 marks to jump from AIR 200 to AIR 100. Or you need just 2.33 marks to jump from AIR 300 to AIR 200. That means you just need to mark one 2 marks question correctly to make a jump of 100 ranks. I think you can feel the competition now. Once you have assured 60 marks in GATE, try to get few more marks, because it is just a matter of 3-4 marks to make a transition from an NIT to an IIT. I am sure you will figure out how to make those jumps of 50-100 ranks, before GATE 2018.

Also, as you see the marks vs rank comparison, you see that there is actually no difference in knowledge between AIR 100 and AIR 200, or between AIR 200 and AIR 400. The difference is made by those 3 hours in the exam hall, where someone does 2 questions correctly more than you, and gets 200 ranks better than you, only because he/she can handle the pressure a little bit better than you.

Next I will talk about the closing rank (not score) in IISc and the top 7 old IITs this year.

  • IISc (estd. 1909) - AIR 55.
  • IITB (estd. 1958) - AIR 104.
  • IITM (estd. 1959) - AIR 167.
  • IITKGP (estd. 1951) - AIR 242.
  • IITG (estd. 1994) - AIR 321.
  • IITR (estd. 2001) - AIR 245 (till 4th round) and 468 (at spot round)
  • IITD (estd. 1961) - Based on interview as well as GATE score (70% GATE score and 30% interview). As a result, the closing rank was within AIR 240.
  • IITK (estd. 1959) - Totally based on interview. The cutoff to get an interview call this year was GATE score 740 (around AIR 470)

Now, if you look at the closing ranks of IISc and the top 7 IITs for the last few years, you will see the same trend i.e. The seats in IISc and IITB get filled up earlier, followed by IITM, IITKGP and so on. Why is it so? What do students see while choosing a college?

  1. Academics - This should be the foremost criteria of choosing your college, but actually students see placement records first before choosing the college. Before choosing your college, try to know about the faculties from the institute website and the areas they are working on.
  2. Placements - Students focus on this point more than the other points to choose their college. When you are studying in one of the best engineering colleges in the country, and that too CS, you shouldn't be worried about placements, should you? Placements in IISc/IITs are more or less similar. Only difference is that some 10 companies visit one institute more than the other. Placements in a particular year also depends on the students, market dynamics and a few other factors.
  3. Location - Students tend to prefer to choose the college which is near to their home, so that commuting to and fro becomes easier. This factor should be considered only after you have shortlisted your colleges of choice based on academics and research. In my opinion, the worst sufferer due to this factor is IIT Guwahati, due to its location in the north-east, thus being far from most of the other parts of India.                    
  4. Herd Following - Though this is not so important compared to the above factors, still it plays an important role in choosing the college. People tend to follow the closing ranks of the previous years and try to select one college over the other. When in dilemma between two or more colleges, they look at the past records and make a decision. One such comparison that I have seen is when people have to choose between IIT Madras and IIT Kharagpur. They simply follow the herd and finally choose IIT Madras.

Some people (not all) try to make their decision based on 'location' and 'herd following'. In my opinion, they should make their decision based on 'academics' first and then based on 'location'.

A small note: I have made all the above points based on my observations. My intention is not to demean any of the IITs or IISc (if anyone feels so). I have just explained the ongoing trends regarding the competition in GATE and what happens after GATE.
Also, the statistics shown above are are based on my collections from various sources. If anybody finds any of the figures in the statistics as misleading, please inform me. I will make the required corrections.

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Hello aspirants,

Many of you must have started  your preparation.So here are some things you can follow during preparation which can boost your preparation...Also all those who feel they are lacking in preparation  don't feel so.There is ample time to prepare.Just make your concepts strong.All the best for your preparations.Its right time to start preparing

https://www.quora.com/What-Should-be-done-to-achieve-rank-towards-AIR-1-in-GATE-CSE-2018

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How should I start preparing for the BEL probationary engineer exam 2017 for CSE? Is solving 5 years of previous GATE CSE questions enough or not?I am in confusion.Please guide me.

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I have received an interview call for Embedded Controls and Software specialization at IITKgp. Can anyone please give some idea about what and how should I prepare for the interview? I read some answers on Quora, but they are answered by students with ECE background. What should a CSE Btech person should mainly focus on?

This is my first choice. In case I didn't get through the interview, will they consider me for my second choice, which is Mtech-CSE,  for the following rounds?

Kindly excuse me for posting it as a blog because no answer was obtained when it was asked as a Question.
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This post is only for those giving GATE 2018 and for those who are willing to give it their all. This is a general preparation plan. More detailed plan I'll give later. I'm giving this mainly because I feel many aspirants are not preparing in the right way. So, I'll give some general directions here regarding Do's and Dont's. As always every advice must have a reason and only if you are convinced about the reason you should follow it. 

AIM: To score 90+ in GATE 2018

Why 90+? Hardly anyone so far in GATE CSE has achieved this while this is common among other branches. But the main reason for this is that some areas in CSE are not well known to many aspirants. And this is not due to any issue of ambiguity in questions as was evident in the GO keys for last 2 years which were 99-100% accurate. So, why not aspirants start aiming for 90+? Even aim 100. Any topic you are not getting quality material, we shall provide. Also realize that even AIR 1 makes silly mistakes and you have to account about 10 marks for this. i.e., if you know for 90, you get 80 in actual GATE. So, I do not want anyone to leave stuffs to luck in the end. Below 70 you are almost doomed unless you have reservation.

How to start preparing?

This depends on where you stand. Suppose you have given GATE 2017, I would suggest to first analyze what all happened in the exam - which all areas you confidently answered, which all areas you made mistakes, which all areas you could not answer etc. This should tell which all areas you should focus more. 

Now in general, you need to know all GATE topics and should have the numerical skills to apply them in a problem. So, aptitude is required in addition to it being asked for 15% marks. What I meant is learning aptitude must not be just practicing some speed/distance questions from some book, but also about learning to solve problems on own. Some people have this inherent skill and they have a big advantage in GATE. Others need to build it first by thinking a lot while solving such questions. 

Coming to other subjects Mathematics come first. And subjects like Mathematical Logic, Set Theory, Probability, and Graph Theory you MUST do at first. Because these are used in other subjects and hence ensures your strong base. These are also the subjects why other branch students easily beat CSE students as quite often CSE students ignore them. Other mathematics portions like Linear Algebra and Calculus do not have any dependence in GATE syllabus and these you can cover anytime.  (Of course you may bring in a system subject here like OS if you feel bored with Mathematics)

Then do the CSE subjects. Anyone would say Algorithms, DS and Programming cover a lot of GATE marks. This is true. But there is no use in concentrating on these subjects alone. Those who are good in programming C code usually do well in these areas. And those who studies just theory usually get less in these areas. So, my suggestion is to implement most of the algorithms you learn here especially if you have not done so in your B.tech.

Then comes two subjects DBMS and Computer Networks. For DBMS text book (of course only standard one like Korth/Navathe) knowledge and practice is enough if you know and have practiced SQL queries. Otherwise just start writing SQL queries. For Computer Networks a good text book and previous year GATE questions can guide one well. Usually these two subjects are done well by most toppers. 

Now come 2 subjects which most toppers loose marks on. TOC and CO. Actually these two subjects are the reason why GO was mainly started because most answers given on these else where were wrong. For these two subjects, the knowledge required by IITs are just basic only as other subjects -- but even this basic knowledge is taught wrong at other places including Universities. So, you must be really careful in seeing any material on these subjects outside standard resources. You can also refer the GO solutions here because as told earlier these 2 subjects are the main reason GO was started. 

Now, there are OS, Digital Logic and Compilers. For Digital Logic I'm not saying anything as everything I wanted to say are covered in this PDF. OS is usually a high scoring subject where toppers can score 100%. But sometimes questions can be tricky like CO. But if you solve -- not learn the given solution -- all the previous GATE questions you can score good. Compilers is usually not well covered even by toppers. This is also one subject where the standard book -- Dragon book - is not easy to follow for beginners. This book has a guide though and you can find the relevant links for Compilers here

Okay, so this is the brief coverage of all the subjects. For any subject resource you can see http://syllabus.gatecse.in. Only for Digital Logic we have a PDF book now but my highest priority is to do the books for other subjects which should be made in coming months. These will be made in a way to help you follow the standard books -- and not as a note book. Those who find trouble reading standard books can also see the best CSE GATE videos collected here. 

All the suggestions I gave are tough. And yes only YOU must work hard for it -- and not me or any one else. The result will be your GATE result. And this is the reason why GO is free -- so that no one comes here and expects others to work for them in return for money they pay. What we believe in and what the results show is that whoever works hard -- and of course works smart -- tops GATE. At first solving problems on own takes time -- even after completing my Masters some GATE problem used to take me even days to solve. But that is the effort you should give. Always remember the 30% rule of GO book - never see more than 30% of the given solutions. Else you are preparing wrong for GATE -- might work for ISRO or other exams where questions are repeated. 

So, are you ready to give it ALL? 

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I assume you are in General Category and up to 1500 rank one can expect an interview call for MS Research. With new IITs this might go even lower. One more thing is for research admissions, at many places there might not be a GATE cutoff and based on resume - (CGPA in bachelors etc.) yu might be called as long as you have a valid GATE or other national level score. Even after this 1000s of students won't be getting a good college.

So, what constitute a good college? In my opinion it should increase the knowledge level and hence provide better career opportunities. IITs, select other institutes like TIFR, CMI, ISI, top IIITs are the nly ones in India which does this. Then there are insitutes which prvide good placements and top NITs are the ones to go for. Some professors at NITs do good research and for CSE NIT-Calicut is famous for this. If you get to any of the above colleges your career is safe.

Now comes some colleges which are good for B.Tech.and okay for M.Tech. due to placements. NSIT, DTU, CET Trivandrum, CEG Guindy, mid NITs etc. comes here. If you work "efficiently" - that is doing what is required for companies like Google, Amazon., Microsoft etc. you can get a good placement but there might not be much support from the college. The difference in these colleges and old IITs are that old IITs make you work really hard and hence you will be prepared for a better placement. Here, you have to do this on your own.

Now, below these colleges, at the level of low NITs, I personally do not recommend any one joining. Those people should have definitely written IIIT entrance, BITS entrance etc. Because after M.Tech. you might not even get a good job and you learn nothing. But you can devote time and prepare for GATE again and then get to PSU or other places depending on the work load.

Should I repeat? I have hardly said anyone to repeat. Usually those who successfully do repeat know this from their heirt and hence they do it successfully. If someone forces one to repeat he/she usually won't succeed. The only thing I can guarantee is that those who prepare in the proper way (I have told this in many posts- just browse through the blogs here) hardly fails to get a top rank. But for this, you should know the GATE syllabus well, and must have the commonsense to work for covering them all and not wait for someone to guide you. Whether you have coaching or not, you must guide yourself - can take help from seniors if needed. Then aim for scoring 80+ in the exam. This is possible and if you can do the needed, you can surely repeat.
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Before we dwell into how I got sucked into the swirling whirlpool of GATE preparation, I have to tell you where I was at may 28th 2016, I was back from my college hostel for the last time and having written my last semester exams (after a serious accident),I knew I was gonna fail in two of em papers (cause I didn’t study, not because of the accident, well partly because of the accident, my parents told me it was fine if you couldn’t pass because of the accident, and that’s all I needed to hear to not study for the exams the night before em, cause that’s all a cse btech student really needs to pass ).

I did’nt pass in them when the results came up on July. I had a job offer from TCS, the usual entry level associate software engineer, the one almost every btech student(irrespective of branch) from a local government engineering college ,gets and I wasn’t sure that the job would be right for me. I was always told to try for GATE from home and that education matters more than job, which I felt was true.

I didn’t really deserve the job, cause I remember that the interview didn’t really test anything, they just took everyone who they thought would pass for an engineer (no offense, but it’s true, atleast for my batch).I couldn’t write GATE 2016, because I was sick (who am I kidding,I didn’t study for it, luckily was sick too).I always wanted to go to an IIT, but that apparently didn’t work out, cause I was dumb at that age. 

Wait I’m supposed to tell you which college I went to, it was Government College of Engineering, Kannur, Kerala. So classes at my colleges were not primarily focused on making the student learn computer science but was kind of like finishing what was specified in the outdated syllabus, and there were only two or three teachers who really cared about what they taught.

So I started preparing for GATE in June, but it was like an on and off relationship, sometimes I would take a week off, my supplementary exams came up in October and lots of other things happened too. In order to start my preparation I did a lot of research into how really bad(average their whole life) students prepared and there weren’t many, I took all the goodies from their blogs (you should too, rather than sticking with one bugger) and created a style of my own, before I started I listed all of my vices. 

  1. I use to be bad in periodic revision.
  2. I couldn’t study for more than an hour.
  3. I would skip parts of a subject that was too hard.
  4. I binge watched movies every once in a while (atleast once a month).

And I found ways to overcome them

  1. I made flash cards (just search for them, they are really useful).I made it into a game, played with my flash cards everyday. For everyone who’s confused I’ll put a pictureSo it pretty much has a question on one side and the answer on the other.You shuffle ’em and try to answer, the answers shouldn’t be something right out of the text or something, it should be what brings out all the concepts in that portion.
  2. Well the problem with someone who actually hasn’t studied literally anything during college is that you would have to start from scratch and that requires a looong time (6 months in my case). Unfortunately I don’t have any shortcuts or magic for studying long hours, you just have to brainwash yourself. Sometimes you can study for 8-9 hours because it’s your favorite subject, but most of the time, you require self discipline and motivation (can’t help you here, find out why GATE? It can be something as silly as placements or knowledge). After a while you will find studying bringing you happiness and that means you’re pretty much in the zone.
  3. I watched video lectures for boring parts,I spent hours figuring out how they worked. I kind of have a theory why stuff are difficult in computer science, it’s mainly because you either skipped something else along the way or you just need more time.
  4. Well I deleted all movies from my laptop, you heard it correctly. I uninstalled WhatsApp, Facebook and removed everything that could distract me, unfortunately I became addicted to quora after a while I had to stop that too. 

After I got these problems sorted I started with discrete math and digital logic together. After digital I went straight to CO, unlike what others said I went through both books hamacher and Hennessey,I found hamacher really hard, it took me a while. I then took TOC , the last part on decidability is a badass topic, you need to really sit down to understand it. I moved on to operating systems and compilers. I have to say video lectures from iit Kanpur on compilers really helped out a lot. I read Galvin like a novel, it felt like it. For data structures and algorithms, I did a lot of coding in codechef, hackerrank and read CLRS.i found algorithms really hard especially dynamic programming and the greedy algorithms.I didn’t dedicate too much time for calculus because I was good at it from school.I used Khan academy and MIT lectures for probability and linear algebra. Networks really made me read Tannenbaum a lot, I liked his style of writing. I was good at databases from college. And finally for aptitude, I just solved a lot of questions.

That didn’t help a lot right. Well it’s the same thing that’s written in hundreds of blogs, so here’s how I can help. I’ll tell you this, preparing for GATE is not smooth. It doesn’t magically go from day 1 to exam day with you studying 18 hours a day and getting the ability to solve questions that look like you could only solve if you knew the answer. Yeah you’ll get a lot of that, you’d see a lot of that in the beginning, it’s only when you start asking why to everything even to why 1+1=2, that you can start to appreciate concepts.

Here are some key points that you need to understand

  • You are unique, everyone’s different, just because some strategy worked for a person doesn’t mean it would work for you, your individual habits, your rituals, your surroundings, your thoughts everything defines you, you have to find your comfort zone.
  • Rot learning is so embedded in our system that it’s hard to throw away. So you would have to unlearn a lot of stuff. Don’t blindly memorize stuff, it doesn’t help you get anything. Remember try to learn fishing so that you can fish everyday for the rest of your life rather than buy a fish from someone for just the day.
  • 80% of the successful people weren’t talented, they worked their asses off like there is no tomorrow. Dedication is so important that you might have to sacrifice a lot in your life in order to gain something in the future
  • 6 months or a year is a long period of time. It’s really easy to give up after a while, each time you feel like giving up take a day off it helps, then get things back in track, why? Because we’re human, we’re not machines.
  • When you realize that you’re learning in order to gain knowledge and not for scoring marks in GATE, you will actually learn that concept.
  • I remember watching Shai Simonson’s video where he says he always tries to teach students in such a way that they take a concept and tear it down and build it themselves that the concept becomes their own (you will feel like you invented it).A good teacher doesn’t try to force his understanding in a student rather he tries to make the student find his own understanding of the concept.

After you acquire knowledge it is essential that we test it. I would recommend gateoverflow’s GATE book instead of any other previous year book because you learn to think for your self. Almost all other guides or practice papers solutions might try to force you to an answer, never do that. If you don’t understand it you probably haven’t studied it properly or the answer is wrong, so don’t take that answer. Go back study come back try to solve it again, post it in a Facebook group, try to look at how others try to solve it, learn their approach not their answer.

Remember to do a lot of tests way before the exam, try to chill out during the last week, revise a lot in the last month. Don’t try to overload your brain by studying new concepts in the last month.

Last but not the least, don’t compare yourself with others in tests,I got 30s and 40s during December, 50s to 60s in January.64 was the best I ever got. I got 69.67 in set 2 for GATE 2017,66.91 normalized and an AIR 170 , this is my GATE story, all the best

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Hello Everyone

I want to know the entrance exams for Phd computer science

Could someone suggest me what exams are their and how to prepare

Thank You
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I request all the seniors here to guide for ISRO and ISI  prep., I searched Web but not able to get any useful link. Kindly if possible , provide link under this post of all those material which can be useful apart from prev years question paper as they are on GO itself.

The new subjeccts which were not in GATE, how to tackle those as there are many ppl like me who have studied those subjects 2.5-3 years ago and do not remember much. Hope to get some helpful responses out of this.
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Hello can anyone tell me how to prepare for Artificial Intelligence for UGC-NET CSE?

I have been following NPTEL lectures on AI - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbMVogVj5nJQu5qwm-HmJgjmeGhsErvXD , but I think it has lot's of stuff which is not required for UGC-NET or I'm in dilemna like to skip some videos and watch only the stuff which is in syllabus.

Well, the thing I'm trying to ask is if anyone has prepared for AI for UGC NET, where did they read from?

Thank you!

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Which spoon am I talking about? I'll come to it.

A baby crow is pushed out by mother as soon as it grows up. But this rarely happens in humans. The current generation especially is taken care of by parents so much that they do not know anything. Not true for everyone but for many. This is not only true of parents but also teachers. Teachers are forced to spoon feed the students due to pressure. So, in the end students know only to read and by heart notes which fails them when it comes to competitive exams like GATE.

Okay, now most of you are not parents or teachers but GATE aspirants. Still, why are you doing the same mistake to your friends/juniors? Do you think sharing your notes is going to give them a top rank? I also did this during my bachelors and later only realized my mistake. One can learn only by doing it himself. If you have learned, tell others how you did it-- but not what you learned. When you share a resource think if it is going to help others. There was a big demand for handwritten notes on gatecse site and only I objected to it. My point was to only give "quality" resources. Many people won't agree to it, but quality is what it takes to reach top 100. There is no short cut to success- you have to make your brain work and study the hardway. So, rather than giving your notes or shortcuts to your friends/juniors tell them to learn the subjects properly from standard resources as per GATE syllabus and to do previous year questions. Otherwise you are just ensuring that they never reach top 100 - I hope no one is doing this intentionally to reduce competition. 

The spoon I told early does not stop here. Let me ask you some questions:

  1. How to apply for MS?
  2. How to make an SOP?
  3. How to make a resume?
  4. How to apply at IIT?
  5. How to even fill an application form?

No one is expected to know answers to these, but at 20+ and especially from CSE you all must be able to find answers to these yourself. There is no excuse in giving a resume in doc format -- even science students know to make them in PDF. Never wait for someone to teach you stuffs. Do it yourself with your own hand and not with someone's spoon. Always make you standout from the rest-- even in a resume. When you thrive for excellence you will get help also. Stop using your senior's resume/projects and giving excuse that everyone does it; unless you want to be useless.

You are all CS graduates. This time last year Pragy - who had once failed in B.Tech. made this app - https://github.com/AgarwalPragy/GATE2016_MarksEvaluator which saved the anxiety for CS GATE takers by telling their results a month early- yes he just mocked the GATE results with his programming/analytical skill. He is now in IITB and without knowing anything I can say that he will be topping there. So, instead of worrying about GATE results- which is anyway not going to help, I recommend you to do something useful for you as well as others- but certainly not sharing your preparation materials - because that just takes away people from reaching a top 100.

Rather than giving a fish, teach a hungry man fishing; that will give him food for lifetime

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Do not mistake- almost all IITs have direct admit for M.Tech. CSE. Only IITK and IITD have interviews. So, my post is meant for research/project interviews. There are plenty of good interview experiences given by previous year people. Still I wanted to say something new.

Last year and even before I have seen many people clearing interviews and usually the same set clears them in most IITs. This might be a surprise because every place more than 200 people attend and only like 10-15 gets selected. But that is the truth- other people are simply not good enough. So, my post is to try and help them.

Many IITs do have a filter test where GATE level questions are asked with more importance to questions in TIFR syllabus (theory). I guess you all know how to clear this. 

Now, for the main interviews professors look for those who are interested in research. They do not need someone who is trying hard to answer they mugged up. Somethings they like are follows:

  1. University/college topper - shows a student works hard
  2. Some national level achievement like math olympiad, NTSC etc. - shows he/she is skillful
  3. Publications - very important and if its an international one highly valued
  4. Good project experience -- research oriented projects have higher value
  5. Knowledge of academically relevant tools - in many labs they have simulators or similar tools. Good working experience on them is a plus.

At B.Tech. level it is not easy to even read a good publication. And we cannot change your academic history also. But rest of the things we can change. So, i suggest to see last year ranks (once you know your marks) and target a particular IIT and a particular lab there. Then prepare to reach there, even if you attempt at other places. i.e., your focus must be on a particular lab/area. I uploaded a slide on performance monitoring which is relevant for compiler/architecture/HPC areas. Like this there are many tools which are relevant for each domain. I cannot help you on other areas because I simply have no idea. Only way is to google- navigate via IIT profs/labs pages. Once you decide your area and have a lab in mind things are very narrowed and you can proceed easily. This is the main step and most difficult too.

This is not something many people do. But research is meant to be new. If you go to interview thinking you are going to be selected just because others are worse than you, it is never going to happen. Only way to be selected is with quality - absolute selection and not relative.

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First of all not even questions are out, so we never know our exact marks. Still if you have attempted less than 35 questions there is less chance of IITs in open merit. So what next?

  1. Soon coaching institutes will start new batches to attract you
  2. There are other exams like BITS/IIITs
  3. State level colleges, repeat (hardly works) or not
  4. MS abroad
  5. Sit at home and repeat
  6. Try some/already having job and repeat

Now, what you should do depends on you and what you want in your life. Some people even after studying at IITs dont do any job- for those kind of people option 3 is good- can select a higher option in matrimony profiles. Otherwise no one should select this.

If you do not have an issue going abroad option 4 is good. Option 2 is also good as these colleges are on par with IIT standard. Though IIITH exam usually have plenty of previous GATE questions copied.

Options 1, 5, and 6 (how to REPEAT) depends on you. Personally I have only told 2 people to repeat though indirectly. Both of them had ranks around 650 and next time they got high 2 digit ranks. But believe me they worked their hardest for this difference. And work hard does not mean they solved 1000s of questions more. Mainly they studied the concepts they did not know- so how can you do this?

  1. If you lack basic problem solving skills and base knowledge in subjects - that is you are not even qualifying GATE- only class room coaching can save you. But remember that it will only take you to qualifying level. i.e., you should prepare yourself for self study. For example, you should learn about DFA, NFA etc. from class room coaching and understand decidability etc. by self study.
  2. If you are good in some subjects (able to score 80% above in them), you are very well enough to score a top rank by self study. Get standard books and start reading concepts in depth like you know for your favorite subjects. GATE only needs basic knowledge but basic must not be corrupted by coaching.
  3. Realize that to improve your rank and especially to jump to top 100, you need to make a jump in your knowledge level which is not easy. Only if you are ready to do this, go for repeat. Simply repeating whatever you did last time for more hours won't be enough.
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A long post. Please bear with me.
Day after tomorrow is GATE and I just wanted to say a few things before the exam.
Firstly, I thank all of you, the members, in FB group as well as the GO website.
Anyone who asks a question, answers it or leaves a comment deserves to be appreciated. You guys are amazing.
The answers provided on GO website are simply the best and a person can gain a great deal of knowledge merely by reading the discussion below it.
Secondly, I thank all the mentors for their dedication towards this group. You are our heroes.
Lastly, I would just like to add a piece of advice for all those who are discouraged right now, who have been working really hard for the past couple months or year, but haven't seen any results, scoring much below 50s.
Trust me, I have an idea of what you're feeling. I'd just like to say one thing - 
PLEASE don't carry this score with you in the examinaion hall. Don't go there with your mind made up that the exam will suck and so will you. And "I know I haven't performed well in any of these tests, No chance I'm gonna do good today, it's impossible, I don't deserve to score good anyhow."Please just don't. GATE question paper is different from any test you have given so far and so is your mindset while you're attempting it. Don't judge right now how you are going to do tomorrow. Don't decide your fate beforehand. 
Try not to be negative while attempting exam. It's difficult to be positive, I know. Just try not to think about anything at that moment except the question in front of you because frankly, nothing can help you at that point of time. And don't get stuck at any question feeling, "I am good at aptitude, I must be able to solve all these ten question or I'm great at algo, why am I unable to solve this? or I wish I shouldn't have ignored this topic or I wish I had studied this in more depth or I wish I had put in just a little more effort, it could have made a great change" and a hundred more of these. Please avoid this mindset.
Remember, it doesn't matter whether you're getting marks from technical section or aptitude section, your strongest or your weakest subject, as long as you score.
And please don't make unnecessary attempts, they seldom work out. Don't look at the red dots(unattempted) on the side panel, 
I know they are the hardest to avoid but try your best to do so. (I personally feel they are utter garbage :P)
Instead, focus on reading and attempting questions correctly. You don't need to attempt a lot of questions to score well if you attempt correctly. 
I do not promise any miracle, I'm just giving an advice that I think could have helped a lot like me last year. 
Don't take this exam too seriously and all the best. 
 

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I have not started any aptitude preparation , can anyone suggest me important topics which will fetch me around 10 marks in GA Section?
79

CS  Computer Science and Information Technology



Section1: Engineering Mathematics   
Discrete Mathematics: Propositional and first order logic. Sets, relations, functions, partial
orders and lattices. Groups. Graphs: connectivity, matching, coloring. Combinatorics:
counting, recurrence relations, generating functions.
Linear Algebra: Matrices, determinants, system of linear equations, eigenvalues  and
eigenvectors, LU decomposition.
Calculus: Limits, continuity and differentiability. Maxima and minima. Mean value
theorem. Integration.
Probability: Random variables. Uniform, normal, exponential, poisson and binomial
distributions. Mean, median, mode and standard deviation. Conditional probability and
Bayes theorem.



Section 2: Digital Logic
Boolean  algebra. Combinational and sequential circuits. Minimization. Number
representations and computer arithmetic (fixed and floating point).



Section 3: Computer Organization and Architecture
Machine instructions and addressing modes. ALU, data‐path and control unit. Instruction
pipelining. Memory hierarchy: cache, main memory and secondary storage; I/O
interface (interrupt and DMA mode).



Section 4: Programming and Data Structures
Programming in C. Recursion. Arrays, stacks, queues, linked lists, trees, binary search
trees, binary heaps, graphs.  



Section 5: Algorithms
Searching, sorting, hashing. Asymptotic worst case time and space complexity.
Algorithm design techniques: greedy, dynamic programming and divide‐and‐conquer.
Graph search, minimum spanning trees, shortest paths.



Section 6: Theory of Computation
Regular expressions and finite automata. Context-free grammars and push-down
automata. Regular and contex-free languages, pumping lemma. Turing machines and
undecidability.  



Section 7: Compiler Design
Lexical analysis, parsing, syntax-directed translation. Runtime environments. Intermediate
code generation.



Section 8: Operating System
Processes, threads, inter‐process communication, concurrency and synchronization.
Deadlock. CPU scheduling. Memory management and virtual memory. File systems.


Section 9: Databases
ER‐model. Relational model: relational algebra, tuple calculus, SQL. Integrity constraints,
normal forms. File organization, indexing (e.g., B and B+ trees). Transactions and
concurrency control.



Section 10: Computer Networks
Concept of layering. LAN technologies (Ethernet). Flow and error control techniques,
switching. IPv4/IPv6, routers and routing algorithms (distance vector, link state). TCP/UDP
and sockets, congestion control. Application layer protocols (DNS, SMTP, POP, FTP, HTTP).
Basics of Wi-Fi. Network security: authentication, basics of public key and private key
cryptography, digital signatures and certificates, firewalls.

80

Are you preparing well? Except a very few most would not say "yes" to this. Some people are very confident with their concepts and most others are in tension. So what to do?

My advise - Take a day break. Do whatever that makes you happy. And after this think for sometime about what you are doing.

There are some people who got top rank in first attempt, in second attempt, in third attempt etc. So, suppose one gets a top rank in third attempt - why could not he/she have gotten that in second or first attempt? If you think lack of time - most times it is not. Usually it is due to bad preparation. And once you get to a bad preparation it usually takes a GATE result to change it. This is evident from many people here- I do not know what they did, but many people who were here last year and are now, have improved a lot. This shows in their thinking and answering. But the thing is that, this could have even happened last year. Or for many of you this can happen this year and not next.

Even now there is a lot of time for GATE. What you need to do is, do not worry about anything and just study properly. Even if you understand only one new concept each day, that is enough. Make each day worth - not by spending 10+ hours with book, but by spending at least 1 hr thinking about some problem/concept. Each one of you is different:

  • Some have good numerical skill
  • Some have great accuracy
  • Some have good imagination
  • Some have good memory capacity

So, you should make use of what you have in the best way for GATE. And try to minimize the effect of what you lack. Knowing concepts is of course the main thing, but how to do it is also important. At 20+ age you are not supposed to ask for spoon feeding and rather question whatever is being told to you - at least in mind. As I had told earlier no test series is going to tell you anything more than previous year questions (some like ACE test series will also loose you your verbal ability marks). So, do not worry about the sea of questions here. Just concentrate on GATE ones. Why not understand the GATE syllabus yourself rather than asking someone about it?

And do not forgot to take a break if needed and analyze your preparation. Might even recharge your brain. It is like an out of form batsman taking a break and coming back smashing the ball to all parts. Also, you should be mentally strong and not worry about anyone else. Your friend and enemy are only you - never care of anyone knowing more than you nor for anyone knowing less than you. Group study is good- in clearing concepts. But after this self improvement and revision must always be done individually.

I was never a preacher and yet this is my third blog. I just wanted to say these for a long time. Hope I have said everything now. All the best for GATE 2017 :)