Recent posts in Preparation Experience

21
If this is too long to read, here's the summary:

1. I found a good peer group to study with.
2. I used standard textbooks and standard resources for almost all subjects.
3. I realised that analysis of the mistakes I made in tests is more important than the marks that I scored. 

You can find the resources I used here: https://goxul.github.io/My-GATE-prep-pt2/

You can find my test series marks here.

GATE 2019 

I decided to appear for GATE somewhere around October 2017, but didn't actually start preparing for it until January 2018. I enrolled for a coaching in Bombay - Vidyalankar Classes. They used to happen on the weekends and while some of the teachers were good, some were okay and that's putting it kindly. They didn't even finish our syllabus and the only subject I learned there was Theory of Computation (which to be fair, is the same content that's freely available online by RBR.) and as time progressed, I slowly became uninterested in attending classes and kept studying on my own. With all this, I also had to manage my semester exams and a final year project which I was trying to do seriously. Oh and also, I decided not to sit for my campus placements because I thought it'd give a an impetus to do well in GATE.

The biggest mistake I did was not solving enough problems and giving tests. I was so engrossed in just understanding concepts that I totally ignored problem solving, foolishly believing that I'd be able to do it on the D-Day. I had read some blogs in which the toppers said that they didn't appear for any test series and yet were able to clear the exam, and I thought I'd be like them too. 

Takeaway 0: Do not overestimate yourself. Be brutally honest when you are analysing where you stand in your preparation.

The signs were there that I wasn't on the right path - I still remember the first Made Easy topic-wise test I gave in September 2018 and I scored 5.33/25. Instead of working on the mistakes that I made, I simply chalked up that performance to me being sleepy. This was just one of the countless tests that I failed to analyse during my preparation.

Takeaway 1: More than the marks of the test, the mistakes of the tests are more important. Analyse the hell out of your tests and make sure you don't commit the same mistake twice.

Eventually, I was able to finish my syllabus around last week of December 2018 (and finishing to me meant solving all the questions of GO Book at least once.). I still didn't know where I stood in terms of my preparation because I had barely given any full-length tests. I gave my first full length test in second week of January (it was Bikram Mock 1 on GateOverflow) and I was happy to see that I had scored 69/100. However, the paper was easy (my friends scored 79 and 80 respectively) in the same test. So in a way, scoring well proved detrimental to me as I thought that my prep was in the right direction and gave me a false sense of confidence. I attempted a few more tests and I remember the last test I attempted was of GATEBOOK and I had scored 44 marks in it. I just ignored and tried to focus on whatever I had learnt till now, and kept revising. I had used Anki to make flashcards for the entire syllabus instead of making proper notes and that's what I used to revise. I had zero written notes. 

The D-Day 

As soon as I started the paper, I realised that I had no proper strategy on how to attempt the paper. Why? Because I had hardly given any mock tests to form a strategy. Anyway, I started with the aptitude section and gave it some 15 minutes, and still wasn't able to solve all of it. Then I moved directly to the 2 mark section and started solving stuff, and post that, it's all a blur to me honestly. The only thing that I remember is I was stuck looking at simple, basic questions and thinking to myself "Surely GATE won't ask such simple questions. There _has_ to be a twist in this somwewhere.", which turned to be horribly untrue. 


Takeaway 2: Go in without ANY presumptions about the paper. Don't expect the 2 mark questions to be difficult, don't expect the 1 mark questions to be easy. Just don't have any expectations - take the questions at face value and solve them. And for the love of God, don't ignore aptitude at any cost. It can make or break your exam.

As soon as I left the exam hall, I knew that I had screwed up. I thought the paper was difficult, and when I came out and checked Facebook, people were discussing how easy the paper was. And as expected, my result was bad -  I had scored 44 marks, with rank of 4434.

Anyway, I had already started preparing for other exams - namely IIIT Hyderabad and CMI. I was weak at coding and algorithms in general, and this is when I slowly started improving my coding skills. I used to solve problems from GeeksForGeeks and Leetcode and I had solved around 100-120 problems in a month. While this is a pretty small number, it allowed me get comfortable with coding and get better at time complexity analysis. I used the textbook "Algorithms by Dasgupta, Vazirani et al" as my primary resource to study algorithms. Since I was also preparing for CMI, I also used to solve subjective exercise problems, which were mostly proof related problems. So in short, I got better at Algo/DS, relative to where I stood before.

IIIT Hyderabad's exam was on 28th April and I was able to clear the written test and got called for an interview. Meanwhile, around mid-April, I lost interest in preparing for CMI, and just gave up on it. CMI's exam was on 15th May and I scored 51/100 (Objective: 27/30, Subjective: 24/60), while the cutoff was 60/100. Had I solved even one more subjective question, I probably would have made it to CMI. 

Either way, with these results, I knew that I had the capability to do well in GATE and my marks weren't an accurate reflection of my preparation level. So I decided to take a drop, and move to Delhi for my preparation. I convinced my parents to let me a famous coaching institute, as I thought it'd be a great coaching institute (I couldn't have been more wrong.) and as I had decided to take a drop, I didn't even appear for IIIT Hyderabad's interview.

[A small detour - luckily a few companies were still recruiting in my college and due to that, I was able to get one job on-campus and one job off-campus. Why is this relevant? This, along with me clearing IIITH's exam, gave me the confidence that even if I screwed up GATE after a drop, I'd stll be able to find a job or at least get into IIIT Hyderabad, as I had already done it once before. ]

GATE 2020

I moved to Saket, Delhi on June 15, 2019 and joined a coaching class. I won't name it, but it should be obvious.

After attending a handful of classes in the beginning, I knew that I had wasted my 70 thousand. I only attended a few classes, which I felt I personally needed. 

There were around 450 students in each batch and we had to stand in line early in the morning, just to get good seats in the class. I literally saw people running to catch seats. Since the classes where hugh, there was no scope of personal attention. On top of that, the pace was too slow (on one instance, the professor taught Fibonacci series for over two hours. I doubt even Fibonacci spent so much time on it.), some concepts were irrelevant (eg: we were taught 8085 instruction set architecture? Why? God knows.) some concepts were wrong (eg: simultaenous memory access was being taught extensively in the classes. Till date, I have not found a single textbook which mentions this concept.), the syllabus was delayed by over a month (they finished the syllabus in first week of December). 

Takeaway 3: Join offline coaching classes only if a) you have a lot of money to waste or b) you are an absolute beginner and have no clue about computer science or c) you have zero self discipline and can only study in a classroom environment. Else, you're better off with online coaching or free resources, both of which are available aplenty.

That being said, the only advantage that the classes offered me was that it helped me find a peer group. The PG I lived in was filled with people who were preparing for GATE CS, and all of us had joined a nearby library. We used to go study together, take breaks together and helped each other with studies. I never studied in my room and spent most of my time in the library. 

Now, given that I was taking a drop, I had the entire day to my to study. However, I never tried to study more than 10-11 hours a day, because I knew that it wasn't feasible over a 7 month period. I didn't want to start off by studying 16 hours a day and then burn out later. There's a wonderful answer by a professor of Computer Science at UIUC, who was asked this:

”Q: How can I study hard with full concentration 8-9 hours every day without getting tired or burning out?

A: You can’t.

But if you really insist on trying, here is what I would strongly recommend. Take a 15-minute break after every 30 minutes of studying, take a 30-minute break after every two hours of studying, and take a full one-hour break after four hours. During your breaks, stand up, walk around, go outside, and relax and/or exercise; do not think about work. Eat three leisurely healthy meals every day; do not work while you eat. Stop studying (and I really do mean stop) at least two hours before going to sleep every night, and get at least eight full hours of sleep every night. Take at least one day completely off studying every week. Go easy on the caffeine. Don’t forget to bathe, or do laundry, or shop, or pay your bills, or go to classes, or talk with your friends and family.

Finally, and most importantly, do not strive for perfection; instead, work for improvement. Give yourself credit for every modicum of progress, every new concept that you understand, every new skill that you master, every new tool that you can use, no matter how small.”


So as a result of that, my routine used to be something like this:

Wake up at around 8, have breakfast and reach the library by 9. From 9, study till around 1, have lunch and come back to the library by 2:30-3. Study till 5:30-6, take a break and again come back to study till 9. 

[PS: It's not the hours that you put into your studies that matter but how effective those studies are. Please don't be obsessed with a number - that I need to study 8 hours, or 10 hours, or 12 hours. It. Doesn't. Matter. Always study still you are satisfied with what you have done - it could be 2 hours or 15 hours.]

I used to not study on Sundays and kept myself busy with things I liked - attending concerts, plays, sightseeing Delhi etc. That one day of the week was something I believe helped me to not burn out and anybody considering a drop should definitely have it. 

Coming back to studies, as I had already done my syllabus once, this time completing my syllabus was aking to just revising it once and doing previous year questions again. I was also solving questions from foreign university assignments and textbooks. 

So I kept chipping at the proverbial mountain and before I knew, it was already November. I finished giving all my topicwise and subjectwise tests by the end of November and I was doing okayish at them. [I've shared my marks from all tests in the other blog post, you can find it there.]

I gave my first full length test on 1st of December. It was a TestBook test and I scored 58.7 marks. I was disheartended, so I gave another one the same day. Again from TestBook and I scored 51.7 marks.

I was at a complete loss of words. 

I had prepared well, I was putting in the hours and yet, I was scoring terrible marks. 

I say terrible because the paper was easy (if I remember correctly, the topper had 88 marks.). 

I went back to my room that day and confessed to my friends that maybe I couldn't do it and that probably I wasn't made for GATE. But somehow, they gave me the courage to try again harder tomorrow and hence I say, 

Takeaway 4: It's really really important to have a good support network of friends and family who'll help you get through the difficult times. It would have been impossible for me without the help of my friends. They were the ones who gave me hope when things were looking bleak, as they often did. If you can't find any such people, feel free to contact me as I know how much it sucks at that time, and I'll try to help you in any way possible.

I woke up next morning, revised a bit and gave my first Made Easy test. I scored 69.34. Not bad, I guess. From there, I gave almost a test daily for the next 25 odd days and I mostly stayed in the 60s. Not once did I cross 70 in any Made Easy test and my ranks mostly used to be under in double digits. 

My scores used to fluctuate a lot and at times, my frustration, stress, anxiety and everything else used to be so bad that I'd randomly break down at times, for no apparent reason at all. Heck, I didn't know why it was happening and I didn't talk about it to anybody either. I just assumed it was due to stress and ignored it, hoping that it would go away after the exam. My point being - 

Takeaway 5: My last two months were awful. The stress was horrible and at times, I wished that I hadn't prepared for GATE at all and just taken up a random shitty job. This was further compounded as I was preparing for it a second time and I could see first timers score much better than me. And most likely, they'll not be easy for anybody who's reading this. It will suck, but the good part is - you will come out of it. You're not alone and EVERYONE goes through this. 

Then, January 11 was the date of my first Made Easy CBT. In my mind, for some reason, I had convinced myself that this would be accurate reflection of what GATE would be like (spoiler alert: it isn't).

I went and gave my test and again, it was dogshit. I made countless silly mistakes and I was again dejected that the same would happen in GATE as well. When my results came, it was bad. I had a lot of incorrect attempts. Half of them were silly mistakes, which I was able to solve after the exam. I had given a lot of tests up to that point and yet, my exam temperament sucked. And there's no magic wand to fix it - I just realised that you have to practice more and more tests.

[On a side note - my friend scored more marks than me in Made Easy's CBT and got a worse rank than me - go figure how.]

By the point, I was kinda used to the disappointment of not doing well in tests, so I just rolled on with it.

12th January was ISRO's exam and again, I made loads of silly mistakes. The results haven't been declared yet, but there's a good chance I haven't qualified for the interview. [EDIT: I did.]

But amidst all these disappointments, I did one important thing - I noted down all the mistakes that I had made, and was very careful to not avoid the same mistakes again. It didn't matter to me if I made new mistakes, but I wanted to be 100 % sure that I wasn't repeating the same mistakes. I used to frequently revise the mistake book again and again.

CBT 2 wasn't any stellar either.

I didn't take my results any more seriously and just kept giving more and more tests. But I never forgot to analyse it. I'll repeat it again - ANALYSIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

I gave Ace Academy's CBT and it was easy - I scored 76.67 marks and a rank of 24 out of 500 odd people. But the questions were so bad, I wished I had not given it at all as I had to travel loads for it.

Then, 22nd January was Applied Course's AITS 4 and I scored an amazing 48 marks in that, out of 100. (although, the paper was quite difficult and I got a rank of 61 out of 1200 odd people.)

After that test, I bid goodbye to Delhi and returned back home. Here, my intensity reduced and I mostly stuck to revision of my notes and solving previous year questions.

I gave one final test on 2nd February, of Applied Course and scored 76.67, with an AIR of 22. I was satisfied with it, and gave no tests after that.

The D-Day - encore

I sat down at my PC 40 odd minutes before the exam and I meditated for a while. Around 20 minutes or so. My nerves were considerably lesser this time, because I had given around 30 odd full length tests. I had a fixed pattern of attempting questions too - I did the aptitude section first and then I attempted the question paper in serial order and then I'd come back in reverse order to check the question apper. You have to make your own strategy, and find out what works for you. 

The paper went according to my plan and I was able to finish it with around 30 minutes remaining. Instead of solving new questions and I was able to find a mistake of 2 marks. Anyway, I had attempted around 52 questions (this was how I usually did, as I aimed for more accuracy.)

I hope this extremely long post was worth it and was useful.

In case someone wants to read the resources I used, you can find it here: https://goxul.github.io/My-GATE-prep-pt2/
22

Hello everyone!

I am Aravind and I appeared for GATE CS in 2020, and I scored 82.67 marks and got 6th rank. This was my first attempt, in my final year of BTech. I have seen many students (including some of my friends) worked really hard for GATE but still not getting a good enough rank. My experience tells me that GATE CS requires smart work, and not just hard work, and I feel that was one of my biggest strengths. In this blog, I’ll share my own experience as well as some useful strategies and tips for future aspirants as well. I have broadly divided my preparation into 3 phases for convenience. (This is a long post, if you want to read only my tips for future GATE aspirants, you may skip my preparation experience and scroll to the bottom).

Phase 1 (Jan 2018 to May 2019):

Most of the core Computer Science subjects in the GATE syllabus are covered in 2nd year and 3rd year of BTech. So if you are a college student and thinking about giving GATE in future, 2nd year would be the ideal time to start your preparation (my personal opinion) so that you can study in parallel with your college. 

I myself started preparing in 4th semester of BTech, and started with Algorithms and Data Structures, which was one of my strong subjects. I also enrolled in an offline coaching, so that I don’t get carried away and complete syllabus on time. During this phase, I was able to finish most of the GATE syllabus in my coaching and also since I prepared well for my semester exams, I got a good grip on all the core subjects by this time. I also prepared neat and organized handwritten-notes for all subjects in my coaching itself.

Phase 2 (June 2019 to September 2019):

I started solving GATE Previous Year Questions (PYQs) from June, and also revised all of the subjects in parallel. After solving each PYQ, I would check the answer on GO website, and also read all the discussions and comments. This is very important, as solving a question correctly does not necessarily imply that you have fully understood the concept. This is where GO helped me the most- reliable answers for every GATE question or concept. I also spent a lot of time in solving questions from Maths, Aptitude and Verbal Ability because these 3 subjects are the most scoring subjects, and I didn’t want to lose a single mark here. Also, whenever I faced difficulty in solving any of the PYQs, I would write down that question/concept in my mistakes copy (I maintained a mistakes copy for keeping track of all the questions I found difficult / solved incorrectly). This helped me to not repeat the same mistakes, and my accuracy improved as a result. 

I allotted around 1 week per subject for solving all GATE PYQs. I also attempted a full-length mock test in the beginning of June, just to check how well I have prepared so far. But I failed miserably in that test, and could score only 26/100 marks. After giving that one test, I realized that it’s not enough to just study a concept. I made lots of careless mistakes/calculation errors, and lacked practice. After that, I decided not to give any more tests for a few months and completely focused on solving PYQs, to improve both accuracy and problem solving ability.

I also participated in my campus placements during this period, so I took a break of approximately 1 month to prepare for interviews and coding rounds. In my view, taking a break for campus placements is totally justified because if you have a backup job-offer in hand, you will feel less pressure in the months of December and January, leading to better performance in GATE. We don’t know what might happen in those 3 hours, so it’s good to have a backup. I managed to bag offers from both TCS (7lpa) and Infosys (8lpa), even though I didn’t prepare that much for interviews. If you prepare well for GATE, cracking interviews of software companies also becomes easier. In fact, in my Infosys interview, I was asked a few questions on Computer Networks, and I was able to answer them only because I prepared for GATE.

Phase 3 (Oct 2019 to Feb 2020):

Since I had already completed the PYQs and revision of all subjects, and also had backup job, I focused only on giving lots of mock tests during this phase. I started with topic-wise and subject-wise tests, and later moved on to full-length tests. I attempted multiple tests every day, and after every test I noted down all my mistakes in my mistake copy (whether it’s silly mistake or conceptual mistake). If I come across any new concept in Test Series, I first check whether it’s included in the GATE syllabus, and then studied that concept from Wikipedia or some standard resource, and included it in my mistake copy. From time to time, I also revised all my mistakes that I have noted down, so that I don’t repeat the same mistakes. For e.g., if you previously made a mistake in a Pipelining question in COA, the next time you see a similar question in another test, it should immediately click in your mind that you made a mistake here previously, and you would be more careful while attempting that question. Whether you get a single-digit rank or 2-digit rank or 3-digit rank will ultimately depend on how many silly mistakes you made in the exam hall. That’s why it’s crucial to properly analyze all your tests. Also, I always revised a subject after giving it’s test, not before giving the test. This way, it’s easier for me to analyze which concepts I’m forgetting.

I attempted more than 300 tests during this period. I know that it’s not required to give so many tests, but since I already completed my syllabus and had plenty of free time (I didn’t go to college after getting placed), I thought why not give as many tests as I can 🤣. When I finished all tests of one coaching, I would purchase yet another test series and continue giving more tests, just to keep the flow going. I also took a break of 3-weeks in December to prepare for my BTech semester exams, lab exams, etc.

After my semester exams, I had a lot of free time so I made short notes for each subject (15-20 pages per subject). I made short notes for all subjects in 3-4 days. Making short notes is very easy- Just read 10 pages of your main notes and compress it to make 1 page of short note, by including only the most important concepts and formulae. Short notes help you to revise all subjects very quickly just before the exam, and one more benefit is that while preparing the short notes, you become aware which concepts are the most important which needs to be kept at fingertips all the time.

In January, I was able to score 85-90 marks in most full-length mock tests, so I thought of giving the final touches to my GATE preparation. One last time, I solved all the PYQs of all subjects very quickly (I focused on medium/difficult problems and skipped the easy ones in which I was confident), and also kept on revising the full-length notes of all subjects in round-robin manner. Revision is the most important part of GATE preparation- after all, on the day of GATE exam, what matters is how much you remember, not how much you studied. 

I also attempted the Made easy Centre Based Test (CBT): it’s a mock test which you have to give in a real, proctored exam centre. The thing is, you might be very comfortable in giving mock tests while sitting in your home, but traveling to the exam centre and being seated in the exam hall with hundreds of other candidates can make you nervous and lose concentration. After preparing for GATE for 1-2 years, after putting so much effort, getting nervous in the exam hall is the last thing you want. So it’s good to be prepared for such situations by giving CBTs (Centre Based Tests).

During the last 1 week before GATE (1st Feb to 7th Feb), I decided to relax a bit, gave only one mock test, and just revised all my notes one last time. Still, after so much efforts and precautions, I became nervous in the exam hall due to some unforeseen circumstances, and ended up doing many silly mistakes, that too in easy questions (I attempted 64/65 questions in GATE). Luckily, I somehow managed to get 82 marks in GATE (Even I couldn’t believe it till I saw my GATE response sheet with my own eyes).

Some tips/pointers for future GATE aspirants:

  1. GATE is NOT just a test of your knowledge. It’s also a test of your aptitude (ability to solve problems), speed (solving 65 questions in 3 hours), accuracy (identifying and controlling silly mistakes), observation skills (reading and interpreting all questions properly), ability to remain calm under exam pressure, and even the ability to use the virtual calculator properly. So just having good knowledge is not enough for getting a top rank, you have to work on all the above points too.
  1. Give lots of mock tests and analyze them properly. You won’t know your mistakes and weak-topics till you start giving tests. Not giving tests or giving tests but not analyzing them properly, can be fatal. And maintaining a separate notebook for keeping record of your mistakes and weak-topics can be very helpful. 
  1. Don’t ignore Aptitude and Verbal Ability. Many students study the technical subjects for years, but completely ignore the Aptitude and Verbal section, and end up losing significant marks in the Aptitude section itself. I agree that Aptitude is very easy compared to core subjects, but still it’s good to practice them. Even solving the Aptitude and Verbal PYQs would be more than enough for GATE, do that atleast.
  1. Give equal importance to all subjects. Don’t check the subject-wise marks distribution and all. If you want to top GATE, you cannot afford to leave any subject, since easy questions can come from any subject.
  1. Don’t go into too much depth in any subject. It would mean less time for other subjects, and moreover GATE questions require just the basic concepts. Know what to study, and more importantly, know what NOT to study. Also, it’s good to follow standard resources but again, make sure you’re not spending too much time on one subject. And if you are following some coaching and want to clear doubts from standard resources, searching in books can be time-consuming. Alternatively, you can also use Wikipedia as a standard resource to clear doubts, it saves time (I did that for some subjects).
  1. Limit your usage of social media. This is very subjective and varies from person to person, but I personally find it difficult to manage time for both social media and preparing for competitive exams at the same time (maybe it’s just me, I don’t know). Since I was determined to top GATE at any cost, I did not want to take any chances, so I deleted every social media account during the last 7-8 months of my preparation, even Facebook and WhatsApp. You may keep a separate Facebook account for GO.
  1. Don’t follow any topper’s advice blindly (not even mine 🤣). Don’t just copy someone else’s preparation schedule or strategy, instead, create your own strategy (so that you can post it here when you top GATE next year). And don’t blindly trust any coaching or tutor to guide you in your journey. Don’t be afraid to think independently for yourself, and ask lots of questions. If some solution or concept doesn’t make sense to you, use the internet. Google let’s you search for anything in the world and gives you results in a few seconds, so use Google more often. If you can’t find your answers on Google, ask questions on GO. But at the same time, try not to argue with anyone during your discussions. It’s important to have an open mind while learning new concepts and solving new problems.

I will end this blog with one of my favorite quotes: 

Jaan laga do, ya jaane do!

23

Hi. My name is Tamal and I appeared for GATE CS twice in the years 2019 and 2020. I secured ranks of 1309 and 188 respectively and I am writing this blog to share my experience of the same. I primarily wanted to share this because during my preparatory phase of a year and a half I had highs and lows. Well, mostly lows than highs. And blogs that I used to read on this platform really helped me a lot. So I just wanted to do my bit for this wonderful community we’ve got going here. I also want to point out that it might be the case that my blog will only feel relatable to droppers and circuit branch students but hey, if you’re not amongst them, feel free to read it too :)


1st attempt (GATE CS 2019)

I feel like most people don’t care to hear from a 1309 ranker but I personally feel that this was the most important year of my preparation. Because during this period I had taken some major decisions career-wise that could’ve turned disastrous really fast. The first was obviously to attempt GATE in Computer Science while pursuing my Undergraduate degree in Electrical Engg. I jotted down the date in my diary (I just checked – 16 May 2018) and begun preparing through online videos. I really had no other option for preparing as I never felt comfortable with gruelling 9 hour weekend classes that offline coaching institutes had to offer. Also, the only CS stuff I knew till then was some DS and Algo because me and my friends used to code competitively for fun during our 1st year (that habit left me soon in an attempt of rescuing my GPA). The other important decision was to drop out from a prestigious internship I had secured in my 3rd year summer break and prepare for GATE. I felt like I could only step on one boat at a time and had to let that one go. I worked hard in those summer months but once my classes resumed it was really hard to focus on Electrical Machines and Compiler Design at the same time. I decided to postpone my semester exam study for the month before the exams and barely attended college (but maintained my attendance percentage).  I used to watch videos and make detailed notes. In hindsight, I probably should also have done some problems at that time but hey, hindsight’s 20/20, right? So, November came and I dragged myself to the library to read some Electrical books and that probably was my worst phase. I almost used to break down thinking ‘I won’t make through this sem’. My friends helped me a lot with notes and past year question papers though, and I made it to January fairly unscathed. After completing my video lectures and revising the entire material once, I found I had a week left for GATE. I attempted 6-7 mock tests but goodness knows it was less than adequate for a good GATE rank. And it was. 

I had this gut feeling that I could do better and when a few rejections came my way, that feeling just got stronger and stronger. I also rejected a job offer at that time to prepare full time because as you probably have figured by now, I follow my gut a lot (not very ideal if you ask me). My first reality check was when I realised I had no decent NIT chances being from EE. Next, it was time for a IIIT B acceptance letter followed by a mail that I was ineligible for it (talk about kicking someone when they’re down). Following that was a IIT H RA interview that saw me waitlisted at #2 – A waitlist that never moved. I would have taken up all of those offers had I gotten them but those rejections just made me more desperate for some sort of success.

 

2nd attempt (GATE CS 2020)

I started preparing again from the month of September because somehow I was confident of getting a decent rank this time around and just went back to my habit of programming for a couple months prior to that. The strategy this time was to just revise my subjects and give tests. I had prepared the entire material already. So revision-test-revision was my plan. By February I had given more than 50 full tests  and a handful of small tests (about 3200 questions, considering no repetition). Even though the question paper did flummox me and I do think I could’ve done better (who doesn’t), I was fairly satisfied with what I had done in those 3 hours. I ended up with a rank of 188 and a chance to secure that IIT tag that was a dream since I was 17.

Before ending the blog I feel like touching on a few other things, I will summarise them below.

  • Study Material – A lot of toppers I followed suggested reading good standard books for preparation which is ideal. However, if you’re in a time tussle, feel free to follow any standard source. I used online videos, MadeEasy material (I really liked their OS book), and used standard books only to help resolve doubts which I had along the way. GO is an excellent option for PYQ and every aspirant should go through it atleast once.
  • Practice but also track – I made an Excel sheet with columns like ‘MARKS’, ‘TOPPER’S MARKS’, ‘NEGATIVE MARKS’, ‘THINGS TO IMPROVE’ etc. and kept track of all my tests. My GATE 2020 marks was (the average of my 50 tests + ~1). My GATE 2020 negative marks was 1.67 in contrast to the average 3-4 marks I was losing out in mocks. Tracking helps you improve efficiently, I feel. The Test series I took ranked by their quality - (ME>ACE)
  • Short Notes – In my final year of preparation I barely read my entire note. I used to refer to them only when i felt like my grasp on a concept wasn’t strong enough. Make good personal short notes and try making a brain map of those. A key confidence boost I had before the exam was the realisation that I could answer questions on every topic that was in my short notes.
  • Community Engagement – A lot of fine concept details emerge from that. I distinctly remember having a conversation on the Gate Overflow discussion platform with someone (with username tx635, or something like that) about Cache access time and using that concept in the actual GATE paper. A side note : Don’t over engage. Tread on the thin line.
  • Dropping a year – This should always depend upon the candidate and their gut feeling as to whether they are absolutely sure of outperforming themselves. If not, choosing a safer option is better. There are scores of good, valid, reasonable advices as to why one should not drop, but only one as to why one should :)

If you have any further queries, feel free to comment or drop a mail at [email protected]

24

Disclaimer: This post is very long. To see the gist of it, please click here.

A bit of my background

Currently, I am working as an Analyst in Deloitte. I first thought of preparing for GATE when two of my seniors from my BE college (UIET, Panjab University) achieved AIR-2 and AIR-140 and their photos were pasted on notice board. Then I reached out to my senior who scored AIR-140 and asked him every possible question I could ask about GATE and M.Tech. His name is Ajay Sharma. He helped me a lot there. Still, I was not convinced that should I go for GATE or not, because I had to invest 2 more years into masters before being able to earn and I was not very sure of that decision. But in my 6th sem, I decided to go with it. I joined a local coaching where these AIR-2 and AIR-140 joined and that was not a bad decision. For almost 60% of the subjects, the faculty was amazing to say the least. It was a small coaching so individual attention was very high. But in some subjects like DBMS, Compiler Design, Computer Networks, Computer Architecture, faculty was miserable. And apart from faculty, that coaching had nothing else to provide. No quality study material, no quality tests, just the faculty in some subjects which were amazing. Then at beginning of 7th semester, companies started visiting our campus for placements and I got placed into the very first company that came in so in that sense, I didn’t loose much time in placement activities, but that placement was from where my preparation started going downhill. During this time, I realized what GO is and how to utilize it properly. But at the same time, I started justifying to myself why it’s ok if I don’t study (big mistake). 

After Diwali that year, I stopped preparing at all and started living those final days of college. I felt ‘entitled’ to this break. I even went on a 10 day trip during December. And from there, there was no coming back. In January, my internship started and I was lost in the glittering world of corporate parties. And all those pampering we were getting being new to the organization. I even thought not to appear for GATE 2019. But then my friend who was supporting me during my lows while I was preparing(in both years) insisted me that if I invested so much time in preparation, at least appear for exam. I did take her counsel and revised everything I could in 3 days and appeared for GATE 2019. It was an easy paper in comparison to previous years and I was able to perform average. I managed 52.67 marks and AIR 2050. When GO answer key came, I was disappointed for days I did so many silly mistakes, all because I did not practice enough. What added to disappointment was that the work I was doing in my organization was not something I was interested in. And all that wasted time was hurting me now. Since I was used to my college culture, I was not able to manage work with preparation and I did not prepared in those days. But working there for 4 months made me sure that now my way out is GATE only. My internship got over in May, but some family functions ate up my May and half of June.

Irony died a slow death when I wrote ‘A bit of my background’ in heading 😋

Preparation Story

I joined back in June mid. Initial days I was living in a company provided lavish hotel and again I was lost in all this 😅. In July I shifted to a flat, but initial days went adjusting to new environment and schedule. Then during mid of July, I started preparing. In my last year preparation, I left Computer Networks, Probability and Computer Architecture, so I decided to finish those first. I made a schedule, an unrealistic one, and started studying according to that. Soon I realized that I need to create a practical one where I keep some buffer time as well for unaccounted activities like office trainings. My new schedule was keeping October end as my goal to finish the whole syllabus once. But, since I was getting more than required money to survive, I was wasting my weekends like anything. By the time I finished Computer Networks which took me 1 month, I became a lot more serious about my preparation. I made a schedule where I used to sleep by 11 (most of the days), wake up at 5, and study from 6 to 11. Effectively, I studied 3-3.5 hrs a day. This effective time gradually increased. After 11, I used to devote whole time to office, and generally I never managed to read anything in office for preparation. I used to live nearby office so commuting never took me more than 40 minutes a day. After coming back from office, if I have energy and time left, I used to revise some content I did previously. Then sleep by 11 and repeat next day. 

Two major things I was missing while preparing was a peer to discuss doubts and a getting enough time to read standard books. How GO helped me here is:

  • FB group of GO was really really responsive. I used to get responses on my doubts so quickly and that too in a detailed manner. I am really thankful to all the people behind GO, whether it is Arjun Suresh sir, the moderators, the seniors or us, the aspirants who make this group so amazing.

  • I did tried reading standard books but with all the content I had available from previous year which was more tailored towards GATE, I was not able to read books thoroughly and that's where GO PDFs helped me a lot. Like a lot. I used to see so many new topics in this pdf while solving questions which I used to write down in a notebook, subject and topic wise. And read more on it by googling about it.

I tried to stick to the schedule but due to some hiccups during preparation, my syllabus was delayed and I finished first round of syllabus by mid of November. Then I moved to my hometown for an important family occasion which I couldn’t miss. My 1st round included completing theory of every subject in depth. Read new topics I got to know about from GO pdf in depth from reliable resources like GeeksforGeeks, some YouTube channels and some reputed universities’ class lectures. Also, I finished GO pdf which had about 3000 questions from previous years. While doing that, I used to mark those questions subject and topic wise which I felt I should visit again during last days of preparation. Also, I was maintaining a separate note copies to write down small-small things I got to know about while solving questions. 

I came back from my home and started with my 2nd round of preparation during last week of November. This time, unlike 1st round, I was not giving a whole lot of time to understand concepts. I was just going through my detail notes and just revising concepts and if I forgot something, then look at that topic in depth. This way, I was able to finish theory of a subject in at most 2 days (sometimes 3 like in case of CN) and after completing a subject’s theory, I used to solve GO pdf again for that subject. But this time while solving, I used to skip those questions which are not a part of syllabus anymore and also TIFR previous year because they were time consuming for me. However, TIFR questions are really good and after solving those, GATE questions will look like cakewalk, so if someone is not short on time, please do those questions also again. In this round, I used to appear for Made Easy subject wise test to assess my understanding. I scheduled my 2nd round to finish by 10th January. I again got late and finished it by 13th -14th Jan. 

During my 3rd round, I decided to take off from office from 22nd January to 8th February. My 3rd round started and in this round, I focused on two things. Full syllabus tests and previous year questions that I marked earlier and in subject wise tests. Till 22nd, I appeared for a test every 2 day. I used to sleep at 10 and wake up at 4 in morning to manage this. Because a test easily takes about 4-5 hrs. 3 hrs of test, 30 minutes of break and 1-1.5 hrs of assessment of test. While assessing, I used to separate questions I missed or attempted wrong on 4 parameters- Silly mistake, Didn’t know concept, Knew concept but applied it wrong, Not in syllabus (Made Easy test has lot of questions out of syllabus). Then I used to concentrate on just silly mistakes and wrong applied concept. Because at this point, I couldn’t do anything about other two classifications. Also, I started revising theory again. But this time, I was just skimming through it and stopped and looked at the concept in depth only if I have forgotten it. In this round, I also started marking by a highlighter very very important points which will work as short notes for me for quick revision. I marked in a way so that I can finish a subject in at max 2 hours. Also, I was looking at those questions again which I marked in my first two rounds. After taking off from office, for a week, I took at least one test daily, someday 2, after that my revision went way off schedule and decided to compromise in favour of revision over tests. Also, for tests, I was earlier appearing for Made Easy full syllabus tests but in those tests, I was scoring between 40-60 only and I was loosing confidence. So later, I started appearing for previous year only on GO platform and there I was performing well because those were the questions I have already done twice at least.

In my 4th round, which started in the week of exam, I was just reading the notes I marked in 3rd round, and all the important points I wrote down in 1st and 2nd round. And also some links for short notes I saved from GO fb group. I appeared for one test in this week. That went well and I did not appear for another after that.

Exam Day: On the D-day, things went haywire for me in beginning. I attempted Aptitude first. Then for technical portion, I started from the end. And out of first ten questions I attempted, I was not able to solve 5 and I lost confidence. However, as I moved up, questions got easier and I regained my confidence but paper was lengthy for me. I marked many questions for review but couldn’t revisit them. Also, girl sitting next to me was constantly peeping into my screen even after warning which made me conscious (Imagine you are doing something in your laptop and someone is standing behind you constantly looking at what you are doing. That conscious). In the end, I knew I have messed up a little because there were certain questions which I could’ve done had I had a better conditioning to exam conditions and had I done time management properly. 

Post Exam: Once GATE authorities released response sheet, Praggy’s app was working by evening and I was scoring 64.67 as per GO answer key. After official answer key was released, I was scoring 66. I was  expecting rank near 350 and that way I messed up as I was aiming for under 100. Fortunately, I belong to OBC category.

Result Day: I got a better rank than I expected. AIR 283. I was happy. I was aiming for under 500 when I started. It was towards the end that I thought I have a shot at double digit rank. There were days when I was studying from 4 in morning to 7:30 then leaving for office by 8:30 and coming back at 10 in night. There were days when all of my friends were partying hard and I just chose to sit in my room. There were ups and downs at personal level and I sailed through all of them. The feeling was ecstatic to say the least. But I had a office meeting, 10 minutes after I saw my result, so that feeling didn’t last long 😛.

Mistakes I did

  1. Did not go through standard books. Since I was short on time, I had to prioritize the material I want to study and I chose not to read standard books. However, it is highly recommended to read standard books. One thing that is common across most of the double digit rankers is that they read standard books. 
  2. Time management. I wasted a lot of time in unnecessary things, which made me rush my preparation at later stages. I had to compromise on quality of preparation on some aspects.
  3. By the virtue of 2nd point, I was not able to appear for sufficient amount of tests. My strategy for appearing for exam went for a toss while writing GATE. Just because I didn’t practice much in exam conditions trying different different strategies and working out the best one for me. Ideally, I should’ve been writing tests all of January but that couldn’t happen. I missed all CBTs also for which you have to go to a center to give test. Giving sufficient amount of tests is really important.

 

I knew this post will go long, very long. That’s why I haven’t posted it in testimonial. Not everyone wants to read this long experience. So for testimonial, I will write an abridged version of it. In the end, I would like to thank a lot of people. Ajay Sharma, my senior with AIR-140 who made me know all about GATE. My teachers, Gitin Sir, Pankaj Sir, Mintu Sir, Sachin Sir, Vamsi Sir. A big shoutout to GO community as a whole. Tejasvi Sharma, my senior with AIR-78 who guided me during my preparation. My elder sister and elder brother, Neha and Nishant who have stood like a pillar of strength for me always. Harsh bhaiya for motivation sessions. Ujjwal for all the free consultancy 😂. And last but not the least, my friend Shubhangi who made me have a pinpointed focus on my goal and uplifted me in my lows and kept me motivated throughout. Thanks a lot to all these people.

25

Hello, this is Shreyas jain, GATE2020 AIR 166. 

Backstory- After 10th standard , I went to kota with a dream of getting into IIT(obviously) . Then in 2nd year of kota when everything was going quite good then in the month of September ,dengue came and took away 2 months of my life leaving behind lots of syllabus to complete.In 12th standard i managed to get 89.2% in state boards and 149 marks in JEE mains and 90 marks in advance.My mains rank was around 28k and I got into JIIT noida (CSE) because i couldn’t convince myself to take a drop for a year (Fear of failure).

JIIT has a great coding culture therefore from second year onwards i was into competitive coding and was doing good(not great) then in 3rd year ,it took me almost a month to convince myself to start preparing for gate because the fear was still there and i knew that i could get a 8-10lpa job without major difficulties. So i joined ME(delhi) weekend batch and started my prep in the month of January 2019. For the semester exams, like most of us, i only studied just to pass the exams with respectable marks,so i knew i had go through each concepts and subject thoroughly. while studying i figured out that coaching notes were not enough so i started going through textbooks for some specific topics and while solving previous year book i somehow came across gateoverflow and i was surprised by the quality of discussions on each question.My strategy was simple, i learnt almost every concept taught in class, then solved their workbook and then solve previous year along with GO. I utilised my summer vacations to the fullest. I don’t know how many times i have revised each subject  and this habit of revising everything helped me alot in the month of Dec and Jan . Each of friend got placed in the bracket of 8-32lpa , obviously i was happy for them but at the same time was getting nervous , so by the end of September i was very serious with my preparation . After diwali , when my prep was on a full swing, I suffered from Pilonidal Sinus, which is not very common among people. Now,I was very tensed because things were following the similar path to what happened during my JEE prep. After 2-3 week of regular visits to surgeon,i finally decided to get myself operated as soon as possible so that i can continue my prep afterwards. I was discharged from hospital on 29th of November but was still not allowed to unnecessarily sit for next 15 days bcoz of stitches at the lower back. After disturbing my prep for almost 45days, that too at the peak time of everyone’s prep, I planned to first complete DBMS by the December last week , which was the only subject that was left. Then in the month of january i pushed myself more and more. I used to give 2 full length on alternate days and revised and solved previous year book twice in the span of 35 days. Finally exam day came, i was satisfied with my prep and finally I’am happy with my result.

Some Suggestions:

       1. Gate prep is 40% concepts and 60% revision and practice, just be consistent with your preparation.

  1. Self-study teaches you more.
  2. Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. – Benjamin franklin . If i had not had solved or revised everything beforehand then after wasting so many days i could have been in some serious trouble.

  3. The law of attraction is always working,regardless of whether or not we are aware of it,so stay positive. 

  4. Life is unpredictable so prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

       ALL THE BEST TO THE FUTURE ASPIRANTS!! 

26

I was Interviewed for ECIL-GET/2018 Post in July 2018, at Hyderabad.

After the document verification, I headed towards the interview room.

The panel consisted of some 8-10 members.I told my fav subjects as OS,Data Structure, algorithms and Java.

Some of the questions that I can recall were :

(1)Types of operating systems and example of each.

(2)They asked me to draw the process state diagram and various questions related to each and every transition was asked.Like what is happening in the operating system, how and what data structures represent these states etc.

(3)Which Design of OS is best and why.

(4)Which is better Array or Linked List? When and Why?

(5)Some questions on Paging and Segmentation were also asked.

(6)How do you check whether you computer implements VM(Virtual Memory) or not?

(7)Difference between final and finally.

(8)Why Exception Handling is needed?

(9)Java Exception Hierarchy

(10)OOP Concepts.

(11)What is Java Garbage Collector and How can it be called?

(12)Singleton class in java

(13)Difference between Java and C, which is better and when?

(14)They asked me to write some program based on stack, and as they were imposing more constraints, they also expected to show how Exception Handling can be done.

(15)How many ways to create thread in Java? Code was asked to show how it can be done.

(16)Difference between interface and abstract class in Java. When do we need each one of them and why?

(17)File I/O in Java

(18)Then there was this scenario based question: “Suppose you are selected in ECIL and you are given the responsibility of IT Security of ECIL. What policies will you make and How would you implement them to make sure that the Company Information is secure.

(19) Some concepts of Encryption and Authentication were also asked.

(20)How Cycle in a graph can be detected?The algorithm was asked.

Main crux is: Whatever subjects you tell, you should be good at it.Tell 3-4 and they don’t expect you to answer all the questions.They just check your basic understanding.And of course, the interview panel is very helpful and supportive too meanwhile your interview.

Result: Selected.

Please Note: If IT Branch is mentioned in the ADVT, then only IT branch students should go for interview.Last year, I remember they has asked all IT branch students to leave when they came for document verification.But still, All IT branch Students should contact ECIL before coming for interview to avoid inconvenience.

27

All about my GATE preparation Journey.


I will add more to it in due time.

https://crazygateprepblog.school.blog/2019/09/01/my-gate-preparation-journey/

Thank you Arjun sir, Bikram sir and all GO community for your awesome support throughout.A special thanks to my parents without them this journey would never have been complete.Also, a great applause for all Made Easy team, who guided me really well during my GATE preparation.

28

Before you make a decision to repeat or not I would like to make two things clear:

(1) If you are getting a 3 digit or 4 digit rank this year does NOT imply next year you will definitely get a 2 digit or single digit. You need to earn it. 
Let’s assume 500 aspirants(much less than actual number) are repeating with this year’s rank within 5000, all of them cannot get within TOP 200. And final year students are also there to give tough competition apart from repeaters. You need to give your best.

(2) Set Target: GATEOVERFLOW is increasing the competition with every year because it’s free, provides quality resource and is  accessible to every one.
Here’s the proof

Gate Year Marks to get into TOP 100(approx) Topper’s Marks
2010 60 -
2015 66.59 85.85
2016 70 85.95
2017 70.16 86.26
2018 67 83.33
2019 75.33 88.67

Source : https://gatecse.in
You can see the increasing marks year wise.
Note: The topper’s marks is 80+  every year irrespective of the toughness of paper.
We can safely say that next year one should target atleast $70$ to be assured to be in top $100$. But 70 marks might not guarantee a rank in top $100$, infact this year it does not fetch a rank in top 200 also. So better aim for $75$. Moreover others will also see the data and put extra efforts in their preparation.
You can be argue that in 2018 the paper was comparatively tougher and top 100 went down to 67, so target should be around 70 and not 75,  the competition is increasing every year and having a small margin of safety is better than crying after results.


Now once you are clear with your goal there will be various questions that comes to your mind:

  • Give with a job !(Make proper assumptions that how many hours you could give in weekdays and weekend, what if there is project pressure in December/ January and you are asked to work on weekends)
  • Partial repeat (continue with job for few months and resign mid way)
  • Full time repeat.
  • $2-3$ months leave before exam: (Many companies do allow you to take a maximum break of 3 months with loss of pay, figure it out that it is allowed in your company or not and will that be enough.)

I will advise do to prepare your schedule in advance.

  • Weak Concepts : Strengthening the weak concepts, take out the syllabus from Gate site and note down your weak areas/ conceptually wrong and figure out the time required for completing them.
  • GO book: All previous year questions should be solved.
  • Subject wise testPrevious year papers as subject wise test will ensure that you have properly covered the topic well even the tough questions before 2010. 
  • Previous Year test ($2010-2019$): Evaluate how’s your preparation, your basic attempt strategy, time management should be fixed, you can always modify it later.  
  • Difficult Problems of GO book: You must have faced difficulty in solving few problems or liked few problems which you would like to re-do once more, a month or two before Gate exam. So it’s important to mark them.
  • Test Series or anything else you would like to add (In my case I added TIFR and two CBT)
  • Aptitude : Most ignored but essential part, if you are confident that you can  do well and don’t need much practice, then my suggestion would be that every day from December 1st  take 15 minutes daily and solve one aptitude paper from previous year. There are 8 sessions every year and you will get previous year paper from official gate website. It will ensure you have all basic formulas covered and you are able to solve them fast.
  • Previous Year test ($2010-2019$) with 2 hour 30 minutes as stipulated time : (Even if you have given them for $n^{th}$  times given it for $(n+1)^{th}$ time.) This should be done at last, when you are complete with your preparation. So if you are doing job then you can give it only on weekend and will need 7 weeks for 15 test and for those repeating full time will need 2 weeks. It is recommended that you give them @ time of day you have your exam(9:30-12:30 or 2:30-5:30).

Revision: Continuous revision of strong subjects is also required to ensure none of your topics becomes unfamiliar with same.

Now when you have figured out what needs to be done assign months to them, and you could assign a schedule for it. And decide whether you can do it with a job or you need full time repeat or partial repeat.

In my case I figured out that 5 months will be enough for me. (1st September to 31st January )
My last working day was on 31st August 2018.
While working I used to study on weekends which made sure that I am in touch with the subjects. 
Make proper schedule what needs to be done, if you don’t have a strict schedule you will keep delaying your studies. The competition will be getting tougher each year, so give your best.
 

To top GATE you have to beat quality people and not just those around you.
So you can help others, but first, help yourself.

29

Hi, I am Parth Shah who secured 51 marks in Gate 2019(first and maybe the only attempt) and will like to share my story. If you are looking at how to get good rank than this blog might not be helpful but if you are looking for how to avoid the mistakes that can stop you from getting good rank than this might be useful.

First time ever I came across the GATE exam was while reading The Strategy posted by Ankita Jain(AIR-1 GATE2016). I too decided to prepare for GATE and like everyone dreamt of getting AIR-1. But as I was in the 2nd year of college I was not at all serious about GATE exam and thought there was plenty of time to prepare for GATE. I tried to read a few subjects from the standard books which were suggested on GATECSE site but was not able to follow the routine. The major mistake which I made was that I just read the theory from standard books but never tried to solve questions from them.

In the year 2018 during the month of June, I decided to prepare seriously for the GATE exam and started full-time preparation. The second mistake which I made was while reading from standard textbooks I never made notes and as I had read the concepts in 2017 I had to revisit many concepts from the standard books again. As it was the month of June so I started with one subject, tried to understand the concepts and solve previous year questions on that subject. The third mistake which i made was not following the 80-20 rule i.e. if you are able to solve 80% questions on your own then you are strong with your concepts. I was not able to correctly solve even 60% of the questions. During the month of November, I tried to finish the syllabus of all subjects and gave a full-length test just to make sure where I stand and to my surprise, I just scored 46 marks. During the month of November due to university exams, my preparation got slow down. The fourth mistake which I made was not revising the subjects at regular interval of time and as result, during the month of December I had to revise all the subjects again and the revision went on till January. Already the heat was on as it was January and many aspirants have already given many mocks and were scoring well. I still remember in the mids of January I gave one more full-length test but again the marks were not improving and this time the result hit me so hard. It affected my health and my preparation came to halt. The remaining, month of January I was not able to prepare properly due to tension and pressure.

During the day of the examination, I began with 2 marks section, followed by 1 marks and lastly aptitude. In many questions I got stuck and lost the track of time, as a result, I was not able to solve many questions even though knowing it.

This was the story about my preparation and the mistakes which I made were:

  1. Not making the notes from standard books properly.
  2. Not solving the questions from standard books.
  3. Not following the 80-20 rule while solving previous year questions.
  4. Not revising the subjects at regular interval of time.
  5. Not keeping the track of my mistakes.
  6. Not practiced enough for Engineering mathematics, Discrete Mathematics.
  7. Kept aptitude too late to practice(was not able to solve even previous year questions properly.)
  8. Not able to maintain the monotony during the preparation(Sometimes studied for 12 hours and sometimes studied hardly for 2-3 hours).
  9. Rather than understanding some concepts properly in CAO, TOC, Algorithms I directly tried to solve questions. (If the base is not strong there is no meaning of solving any number of questions.)
  10. Got so tensed that last 20-25 days I was not able to study properly.

Things to Keep in Mind While attempting EXAM:
-->Read complete question properly and make sure to read the keywords like NOT,TRUE,FALSE,CORRECT,INCORRECT,MAXIMUM,MINIMUM,%,UNITS,Decimal Places,distinct,balanced,at least,at most ,etc.
-->Take time to interpret the given data and meaning of the question.
-->Always keep the track of time while solving. If you get stuck in any questions try to revisit that question later.
-->Read all options Carefully.
-->Even though you get the answer from option try to get the final answer.Don't leave it in halfway.
-->Ensure you are marking the correct option.
-->Take no pressure at all(I know it is easy to say but at least try to keep your mind calm.).

I believe that failure in GATE 2019 was from my side but GO always stood by to help me. The answers I found here were amazing. The way people dedicate their time to write answers over here and how people argue over the answers unless they get satisfied was wonderful. Thanks to the entire team of GO for maintaining such a wonderful platform. Thanks to the team of GATECSE for maintaining the resources for the preparation on their site, they were very helpful during preparation. Finally thanks to each and every member of the GO who have directly or indirectly helped me during the preparation. All the best to future aspiriants and heartiest congratulations to all the toppers of GATE 2019. :)

 

PS: If there are any grammatical mistakes please ignore it.

30

One often thinks how much attempt will be good enough to get me a good rank. The answer can be found by doing a small analysis.
You need to give around $15$ STANDARD mock test, nothing can be better than previous years to know the answer and it needs to done before the END OF DECEMBER. 
Extract data from it.
Here’s how

Make an excel sheet similar to this .
You will get all the previous year mocks from  here

The following can be extracted from the excel.

  • Your average number of attempts.
  • How much you are scoring in 2 marks(35 questions)
  • How much marks you lost in negative.
  • What is your accuracy.

Add more columns if you need, delete few columns if you think are redundant. This gives you the answer of how much is enough. Now ask yourself

  • Are you satisfied with the marks you got ?
  • Is our accuracy bad?
  • Do you need to increase your attempt ?
  • Do you need to strengthen your concepts?
  • Are you facing difficulty in context switching (CN question followed by TOC followed by Engg Maths) ? 
  • Are you doing lot of silly mistake ? ( https://gateoverflow.in/blog/7349/how-to-minimize-silly-mistake)
  • Is there a problem with your attempt strategy ?

Now once you have understood the problem find the solution at then end you will have the answer to the question 

What is sufficient number of attempts ?

I will show my excel and how I decided what is good number of attempts for me

 

Let’s do a small comparisons between average of mocks and Gate 2019

  Average Gate $2019$
Result $75$ $71.67$
Out of 70 $52$ $48.67$
Out of 30 $22$ $23$
Attempt $54$ $56$
Correct $49$ $48$
Negative $1.64$ $1.33$


Giving GOOD mock is necessary, and there can be nothing better than previous year.
I won’t recommend you to take any test series (https://gateoverflow.in/blog/7305/test-series-recommended) but I know you will so my only piece of advice will be finish previous year mocks first and then switch to any thing else.
PS: A small advantage is their in solving previous year mocks is that you have solved many questions so you might get 5% more than what you can expect in actual gate examination, if you have not memorized all the answers of previous years.

31

In 2018, I was prepared much better than 2017 but scored less than 2017.
I couldn’t figure out even months after exam what went wrong that day?
I took the mock at home and was able to score much better.
Then finally on 1st Feb 2019 ( 2 days before Gate exam)
Few questions came to my mind, what went wrong on that day? All it matters is luck to get a good rank? What if I am out of luck again on 3rd Feb.
Surely there is something more than luck. I thought let’s analyze the paper with time take for each question excluding aptitude(yes i literally noted time for each problem, reading them and solving them). It simply can’t be luck there is something that I am missing.
So I wrote the time taken for each question in an excel and made a bar graph out of it.
No. of questions vs time take

The picture was pretty clear I started with a hard question of 2 marks on that day in 2018 and wasted time and eventually lost confidence with coming questions. 
So I need to find easy questions first one could use the question paper button in the top and scroll and see all the questions and analyze it, but after giving TIFR and ACE CBT, I knew scroll won’t work in exam, (but works in mock test) and dragging and viewing the questions from question paper tab in exam is an overhead.


So what more does the Graph tell ?
More than $10$, $2$ marks questions can be solved within $2$ minutes.
Around $15$, $1$ mark questions can be solved around a minute.
So basically I could solve $25$ questions in $35$ minutes and being easy expecting an accuracy of 90%.
This is it I got my new strategy (yeah 2 days before exam I changed my attempt strategy)
.
I did attempt them in multiple pass, but revisiting same undone questions and reading them again $(55-10-15)$ those $30$ questions will cost at least $15$ minutes. Is it worth it?
I need to save the questions in my first pass that  I want to visit in my second pass.
Mark for Review option came to rescue.
In my first attempt I needed to do one of the following for each question:

  • Answer it -Confident revisit not required.
  • Answer it and mark for review if has calculation and requires revisit.
  •  Mark for review.(Not answered)-2nd pass 
  • Not answered- If I get time

So I started with 1 mark questions after I was done with aptitude
$18$ questions done in $25$ minutes.
$9$ questions in $20$ minutes.
And at the end of $1$ hour my paper looked like something like this(I don’t remember exactly)

Now in the second pass I started with $2$ marks questions as I knew dedicating more time to $2$ marks questions is worthy than trying to solve $1$ mark question  and proceeded with that.
Solving around $12$ questions took an hour. (Should have been a bit better than this around $15$)
If these $12$ questions appeared at the starting, it creates lot of problems or even 3 appearing at start is good to give you tension I had faced it in 2018.
So I was left with around 1 hour I knew, I need to wrap up fast in order to revise so I visited all questions and gave them attempt.
And was able to wrap it up within 2 hours and 45 minutes, leaving 15 minutes for revision. And Importance of revision could be found here
.
P.S. : Please don’t blindly copy it, test it , everyone has a different strategy that suits them best, solve all previous year and discover your best strategy. I have discussed with few others who got more than 70 marks and each of them had a different attempt strategy and probably the best for them.

32

Ask anyone in any in any marks range they will say that they could get few more marks if they did not do silly mistake. So if we could minimize it then our marks and ranks could be slightly better.
Giving GATE for the 3rd time I knew I had done lot of silly mistakes in my previous attempts so I thought let’s analyze them and make sure I don’t repeat them in 2019. Few stats

2017 set 2 1 mark 2 mark
Attempt 25 28
Incorrect 6 12
Silly Mistake 3 6
Silly/Incorrect % age 50% 50%
Silly/Attempt % age 12% 21%

 

2018 1 mark 2 mark
Attempt 22 28
Incorrect 6 12
Silly Mistake 3 6
Silly/Incorrect % age 50% 50%
Silly/Attempt % age 13% 21%


So my $50$% of my mistakes were silly and could be corrected in examination hall, and is clear that in 2018 I did not learn from mistakes made in 2017, but this analysis is available only after exam is over.
Inside the examination hall I have knowledge about attempt only and I need to figure out those silly mistake from total questions with a chance of mistake as 13% for 1 marks and  21% for 2 marks based on my previous stats.

2019 1 mark 2 mark
Attempt 24 32
Incorrect 1 7
Silly Mistake 0 1
Silly/Incorrect % age 0% 14%
Silly/Attempt % age 0% 3%


So apart from improving my knowledge and accuracy I managed to reduce my silly mistakes also, so thought of sharing how I managed to do the same.

Pre requisites:

  1. Using Mark for Review and answered option effectively. (Mark for review option can also be used effectively to finish visiting all the questions in around 1 hour approx as discuss in the blog)
  2.  Maintaining the rough work clear and understandable (possibly in order) 
  3. Develop a habit of finishing the paper in $2:30$ hours: In every test and make an habit of having $30$ minutes for revision.
  4. Having at least $15$-$20$ minutes in the end for revision and having a habit of not chasing undone questions in that time.

Basically average attempt is around $50$ questions, so reviewing $50$ questions in $20$ minutes is very difficult if we can reduce the number of questions to review that would be of great help.

(Q) Which type of questions do we perform silly mistakes ?
Generally what I noticed in my attempt is that I perform silly mistakes in questions that involves calculation,  while silly mistakes in theoretical questions are less likely to happen (except those in which NOT TRUE or INCORRECT has been asked so for that read the question properly).
So the prime objective is to know which type of questions we need to revise in the last $20$ minutes.


(1) How I used is mark for review and answered option?
After answering a question having calculation I marked for it review instead of Save and Next and was shown as marked for review and answered.
So at the end in the last 20 minutes the paper looked something like this:

Image Source: Gate 2019 Mock Test
So basically at the end I had a clear idea of how many questions I need to review only around $17$ questions approx in the last $15$ minutes, so that’s a do able task.


(2) Now maintaining rough sheet in proper order( serial order or any proper order you like) will help in viewing the calculation of the question and reviewing it quickly instead of spending 1 minute searching for the solution.
In 2018 & 2019 we were provided a scribble pad of $24$ pages(considering both sides) and in my center were told specifically that under no circumstances they will provide any additional scribble pad and I had practiced with same so did not have any problem. I recommend you to solve previous years question paper as mock using a scribble pad of 20 pages(4 less) so you are habituated of doing it. Make it by diving an A4 paper in 2 half.


(3) If you are habituated to completing paper in $2$ hour $45$ minute or $3$ hours, speed up you will leave no time for revision.

In the last 20 minutes you need to take the tough call of revising vs the not answered/ not attempted questions. I will recommend revising and here’s why ?
I revised and found 3 silly mistakes in 2 marks questions(2 MOCQ, 1 NAT) that made a difference of $2*3 +0.67*2=7.33$ marks.
I scored $71.67$ and if I had not revise I might have ended up with $64.34$
or if I had managed to do 1-2 2 marks question then $66.34$ or $68.34$ or
making them wrong also and ending up with $63$.
You can figure out the rank difference in each case.
So clearly best case is revising the questions.
Even after this I had a silly mistake of 2 marks I could not eliminate silly mistake but I could clearly minimize it.
.
And even the popular tests series/coaching centers have made mistakes in their answer keys don’t key whether they are silly or conceptual :p

33

This was my third attempt and I managed to get $71.67$ marks, I found many fellow aspirants were too much focused on test series but I managed to get decent marks without taking any test series so I thought of sharing when I think one should take any test series.
I would recommend you not to take up any test series because of the following reasons:

  1.  Wrong questions
  2.  Wrong solutions
  3. Incomplete questions

For the first two if you know or discuss among others you may correct it and save yourself from learning wrong concepts  but the third one is the most dangerous and I am going to discuss why.
Let’s take an example from a question asked in one of the most popular test series in a CBT i gave in January 2019:
(Q) Which one of the following represents overflow condition

  1. $xyz+\bar{x}\bar{y}\bar{z}$
  2. $\bar{x}y\bar{z}+xy\bar{z}$
  3. $\bar{x}\bar{y}z+xy\bar{z}$
  4. $x\bar{y}\bar{z}+\bar{x}\bar{y}z$

The question does not mention what is $x$,$y$ and $z$. The candidate needs to assume himself what is $x$,$y$ and $z$. Now when a aspirant is used to solving 100’s such question they develop the habit of not reading the complete question.
Similar question when given in gate has a proper explanation for each term see below:

(Q) When two 8-bit numbers $A_{7}...A_{0}$ and $B_{7}...B_{0}$ in 2's complement representation (with $A_{0}$ and $B_{0}$ as the least significant bits) are added using a ripple-carry adder, the sum bits obtained are $S_{7}...S_{0}$ and the carry bits are $C7...C0$. An overflow is said to have occurred if 

  1. the carry bit $C_{7}$ is 1
  2. all the carry bits $(C_{7},...,C_{0})$ are 1
  3. $(A_{7}.B_{7}.\bar{S_{7}}+\bar{A_{7}}.\bar{B_{7}}.S_{7})$ is 1
  4. $(A_{0}.B_{0}.\bar{S_{0}}+\bar{A_{0}}.\bar{B_{0}}.S_{0})$ is 1

Source: https://gateoverflow.in/118289/gate2017-1-9

Someone not reading the complete question might not commit mistake in this question, but will definitely commit mistake in this one.
(Q) We consider the addition of two 2′s complement numbers $b_{n−1}b_{n−2}…b_{0}$ and $a_{n−1}a_{n−2}…a_{0}$. A binary adder for adding unsigned binary numbers is used to add  the two numbers. The sum is denoted by $c_{n−1}c_{n−2}…c_{0}$ and the carry-out by $c_{out}$. Which one of the following options correctly identifies the overflow condition? 

  1. $c_{out}\left ( \overline{a_{n-1}\oplus b_{n-1}} \right )$
  2. $a_{n-1}b_{n-1}\overline{c_{n-1}}+\overline{a_{n-1}}\overline{b_{n-1}}c_{n-1}$
  3. $c_{out}\oplus c_{n-1}$
  4. $a_{n-1}\oplus b_{n-1}\oplus c_{n-1}$

Source: https://gateoverflow.in/1815/gate2006-39
Here Sum is denoted by $c_{n−1}c_{n−2}…c_{0}$ but many students will be in rush in exam and in speed treat it as carry and mark option $c$ in exam and proceed. 

In GATE all information and hints will always be there in question. But many aspirants are used to solving substandard questions prepared in test series and hence skip those vital information.
The question that follows is what should be done when one finishes his preparation.
This completely depends on the month  in which syllabus has been completed which includes solving all the previous year questions from any book (Gate Overflow pdf recommended).

Assumption 1: Syllabus completed early (October or before)

(1) Previous year question https://gateoverflow.in/exams/gate?type=1

(2) Analyze your average marks if it’s below 80(for 2016 onwards),70(for 2010-2015) then you are lacking some important concepts figure them out, complete them.

(3) Solve subject wise previous year also  https://gateoverflow.in/exams/gate?type=3 , this makes sure you have covered all good questions even before 2010 in the particular subjects and ensure proper revision.

(4) Now it depends on which month you are in, subtract the number of days from 1st January and take a decision on how many test you want to give in this duration and purchase a test series or take the free ones or redo the previous year ones, completely upto you.

(5) In the last month you should once again solve previous year gate paper once more but this time it should be solved in 2 hour 15 minutes and 15 minutes revision to spot any silly mistake done.(Will write another blog how I minimized my silly mistake)

Assumption 2: It’s mid November or later.
Skip 4th point.

Recommended exams to give before Gate:

(1) TIFR: Interface is similar with Gate, new questions are given, no repeated question, a litmus test of your preparation you must get atleast 60% if you are targeting below 100 (if not analyze where are you going wrong).

(2)One Center Based Mock exam in Jan: In the month of January both ACE and Made Easy conduct center based test if you want you can give both or one. Ace is recommended because it gave standard TCSion center and the interface was exact with gate. Like I got to know few things scroll won’t work, the zoom feature given in Gate Mock test won’t work, the options will be displayed beside the radio button, pressing save and next on question marked for review removes from marked for review to answered or not answered. etc…

What many aspirants do is skip 1-3 and directly start with step 4.
From Arjun Sir’s post after Gate 2018
For those who gave a lot of test series and was expecting same kind of paper in GATE and now preparing for GATE 2019, my only suggestion is to book a slot for GATE 2020. Some people never learn. Some others will now be switching their coaching institutes to improve the results -- please understand the whole reason whether good/bad for your result is just YOU. The toppers photos which comes in any institute page is just fooling you. Even in GO, the testimonials clearly say what the toppers did and what made them toppers -- no one came there, had some capsules and suddenly became toppers.
Source : 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/gateoverflow/permalink/746335835571629/?comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22O%22%7D

34

Hi my Brothers and Sisters :)

Hope all are doing well, this post is about my journey only but nothing else.

Got 57 marks only in Gate-19, i know this marks are not sufficient !!!

This marks are even less than my Gate-17 marks too…  After preparing well also, such things happens to few people only ( previously i seen HabibKhan sir only. ). I wrote Gate in 16 and 17, and this time i wrote 3-4 mocks also, in all those exams i completed my exam atleast before 20-25 min, unfortunately in the G-19, i even doesn't visited 8 more 2 marks questions due to lack of time, in those questions, six questions are quite easy and each question solvable under 1 min, I know the fact that “ LUCK can not favor all the time us only ”, But i am sure the journey is awesome :)

I don’t know what is the main motive behind to write Gate-19, I am not decided to choose PSU or M.Tech before starting the preparation, i know it’s not easy to leave the JOB and go to MTech due to financial problems of my family, i just thought if i have a good rank after that i can decide. I decided to fully dedicate DEC and JAN for preparing, but leave was not approved, Therefore i decided to abscond from the duties ( i know this is not the right way to do, but i don’t have any other option ), I would like to thank my parents to accept this decision. And i would like to thank my friends who support me and encougerage me alot :)

With lots of efforts i prepared, even some time it happens till mid night ! But unfortunately it doesn’t worked for me !!

But i am satisfied with my preparation, and i strongly believe that “ Better things are waiting for me which can worth my hardwork ! ”, it is already proven in my life many times !!!

I can’t thank enough the ADMINS of GO, Even they created a classroom schedule and very well maintained, i know how much tough it is ! and how much time they sacrifice for it !! and i know how much they love to help others !!! I am sure that these persons even doesn't spend this much time for their GATE preparation !!!!

I hope most of the people doesn't know that “ Even ADMINS created a Whatsapp Group and added some of the persons only ( who are actively participated in GO classroom, but luckily they add me also even i doesn't participated in GO classroom ) “

And the answers provided by Arjun sir, Bikram sir,  Akash Kanase sir, Debashish Deka sir, Kapil sir, Digvijay Pandey sir, Sachin Mittal 1 sir, LeenSharma sir, shekhar chauhan sir, pC sir, Pragy Agarwal sir, papesh sir, ManojK sir अनुराग पाण्डेय sir, are marvelous.

and i would like to thank jothee mam, Kathleen sir for uploading all the standard questions. and thanks to Subarna Das mam, for spending time for maintaining GO.

and a special thanks to GATEBOOK sir, for providing his questions on GO behalf of the request of Arjun sir !

without mentioning the following people, my journey of Gate-19 through GO doesn’t complete !

i would like to thank srestha mam, Mk UtkarshAyush UpadhyayaMiNiPandaDeepakk Poonia (Dee)abhishekmehta4uSoumya29 mam for sharing their knowledge and their support with me :)

i enjoyed the discussions with arvinMagmaLakshman Patel RJITtusharpkumar.dilip,  jatin khachane 1eyeamgjhimgtaiarnavSomoshree Datta 5Gate FeverHeadShotPrince Sindhiya and many more people.

PS : if i forget any one, forgive me :)

35
Please give me preparation  strategies for IIT madras Phd Admission by ugc net JRF.

please give me ans regarding this who was already appeared in test.
36

A little background

My GATE preparation started in November 2016. It was the middle of 7 month holidays(you read that right). The holidays started as normal one month inter-semester break(end of 4th semester). I had already decided to devote my entire 1 month holiday in learning Android. But in the middle of the 1 month break one of the top militants in Kashmir Burhan Wani was killed. Indefinite strike was called by the separatist leaders. Since it was only the mid of holidays I thought things would become normal towards the end of the holidays. But I was wrong. At the end of holidays the strike was still going. My college extended the holidays by 1 month. Since my android app was not complete I decided to focus my mind on that. Even at the end of this extension the strike did not ended. Now I got little frustrated. Bad thoughts started coming to my mind. What if something like this happens just before the placements. I had come to know that NIT Srinagar 7th semester placements were taking place at NIT Delhi. But still it wasn’t the same as getting placement in one’s own college. At this time I started thinking about other options. And one of the options that I found was GATE. For the next 10–15 days I read extensively about GATE and related things. And after that I decided that I would not be sitting in placements and GATE became my one and only aim. But there was one big problem. I did not know whether I should go for coaching or not. Previous year toppers had not recommended coaching for GATE. But still I had doubts. So I decided to solve some of the GATE problems to get an idea about whether I can crack it on my own. At that time the only things that I knew from GATE topics was data structures, C programming and combinational circuits. I tried to solve previous year questions of these subjects and I was able to solve most of them. This convinced me that I could do this on my own. After this I noted down the list of subjects which would be taught to us in the upcoming sem and also in GATE syllabus. There were four of them: OS, DBMS, Algo and COA. I decided that I will cover these subjects parallely in college( I was hopeful that the college would reopen soon). I ordered standard books of these subjects online. It took around 1 week to arrive and by this time September had ended. I was ready to execute my plan but at this time the college extended the holidays by another month and put out a notification asking us to undergo training at some place. I did my training in Computer Networks and during that time I did not study GATE. However I read some network topics from Tanenbaum. Finally the college put out a notice that college would now resume in February since it was already start of November and colleges in Kashmir don’t remain open in these months due to extreme cold.

Beginning of something Big!

So I started my GATE preparation. And when I started the only thing in my mind was rank 1. Nothing less. I decided to leave algorithms for future and concentrate on OS, DBMS, COA and networks. During this period I was putting too much hard work and no smart work. I had noted the list of subjects from GATE syllabus and started reading the book even without having a look on the topics to read. This has been a problem since my childhood. While preparing for any examination I would read the entire book even if only half the chapters were to come and since I never joined coaching(even during my JEE preparation) nobody told me about this mistake. And I had some more problems such as:

  • Not marking important points on book. I was crazy about keeping my books clean. So I never used to write anything on them(sometimes even my name).
  • Not making notes. I always believed that once I put it in memory I would not forget it.
  • Reading things in too much depth

Due to all these I faced a lot of problems. I had decided to start with OS and networks. I read networks but after some time I would forget what I had read. At this time for the first time in my life I decided to make notes. But since I was making notes for the first time they were terrible. I was not able to decide what to write on notes and what to leave. I remember studying Ethernet and making its notes only to find that I had written almost everything written in book. I threw away those notes and made a fresh set. They were much better but still nowhere good. After sometime I got bored of reading networks and OS. Then I decided to read COA. I wasted a lot of time reading topics which were never going to come in GATE. At end of December I had read a lot but a substantial percentage of this was never to come in GATE. And I had prepared notes for networks only. I did not get time to study in the month of January as I was visiting my village after a very long time.

Finally the college opened in February. The college authorities decided that the 5th semester would be completed within two months and the 6th semester within 3 months and no gap between 5th and 6th sem.I set two objectives at the beginning of 5th sem. The first one was GATE, the second one was to get an above 9 pointer in this sem. My overall pointer upto this point was 7.5 and I decided that I will make it 8 by the time I complete my B. Tech. I decided not to make the same mistakes that I earlier did while preparing. This time I read only selected topics instead of reading the whole book. OS and DBMS became my favourite subjects. For future candidates I would suggest the book by Galvin for OS and korth book for database. If you use these two books wisely I bet you can solve all questions of GATE. Similarly Cormen is more than sufficient for algorithms. For COA, I used book by Carl Hamachar. This book is very good but it does not cover some(only 2–3) topics. You can cover those topics from internet. While reading these books I noted down only those things which I would forget after some time. For example I would note down the name of the process scheduling algorithm only, not the description of the algorithm. My OS notes were less than 30 pages and same was the case for DBMS. For future candidates my advice is that always prepare your own notes. There are some things which our mind is able to store after reading once(and hence must not be recorded in notes) and there are other things which need repeated reading to make it stick. Since these two things differ from individual to individual one should always prepare his own notes. I would revise from these notes at an interval of around 3–4 days. After 3–4 revisions I decided to revise after 7 days and finally changed the interval to 15 days. The 5th sem was extremely hectic but I managed to achieve both of my objectives. I got a SGPA of 9.04 in that sem and my CGPA shot to 7.8.

When the 6th sem started my objectives remained the same as 5th sem. There were two subjects to cover -computer networks and TOC. I had already studied some part of networks from Tanenbaum. So I decided to use it for further reading. For TOC I was confused between Peter Linz and Ullman. After a lot of thought I decided to buy Peter Linz and I haven’t ever regretted that decision. One of my friends was preparing computer networks from Farouzan. I gave it a try and found it to be better than Tanenbaum(only for GATE). I threw away my network notes which I had made during the holidays and made fresh set of notes. This sem went quite well with me getting a SGPA of 9.32, CGPA of 8.05 and throughly completing both networks and TOC. At the end of this sem we were given holidays of 1 month.

Upto this time I had covered OS, DBMS, TOC, data structures, algorithms and networks completely. During the holidays I started Machine learning and Python. I devoted my entire holidays in learning these. However I made sure that I keep revising those subjects which I have already learnt.

GATE is more about persistence than talent

7th sem started in the month of August. This was the sem students were waiting for, the sem of placements. I had already decided before starting my GATE preparation that I was not going to sit for placements. My focus was now on Maths portion of GATE. I started with discrete maths. When I had made a plan for this sem I did not take into account that I would be getting a lot of holidays since every time a company came we used to have a 3–4 holidays. Since I had extra time I parallely studied machine learning. I also joined ACE test series and started giving subject tests. I used to get 15–16 marks out of 25 in those tests. I was happy since I felt that with practice I will definitely be getting more in time. Now my life was like ML, Discrete Mathematics, Compiler Design and tests. I took a print out of GATE syllabus and pasted it on my room wall. For Discrete Mathematics I used Kenneth Rosen. I found it sufficient for GATE. For Compiler Design I bought book by Aho. This book gave me a lot of trouble. I found its language to be extremely difficult. But my mam was teaching this subject well so I decided to follow whatever she is teaching. Also I watched some of Ravula’s free videos. It had been some time since I joined the test series and my marks instead of increasing started decreasing. Now I was getting 12–13. First I thought this may be once in a while case but no. Those 12–13 became very regular. I felt dejected and lost my confidence. This was the only time during my GATE preparation that I began to question my abilities and decisions. I thought maybe I should have sit in placements. I left GATE preparation and started doing thing which I enjoyed the most- playing cricket. I had stopped playing altogether after the 7th sem started. For a week I left studies altogether. I just played and played. After this I joined madeeasy test series, took the 1st test and scored well. Playing has provided my mind the break that it needed. After this I never stopped playing in that sem. Now I started giving full tests. I remember scoring 52 in my first test(without attempting the aptitude part). After 4–5 tests my score rose to 60 and I felt very happy. After scoring 60 I did not take any more tests in that sem. For some time I focused only on sem exams, seminar and pre project. I ended the sem with 8.92 SGPA and 8.17 CGPA. The lesson learned here is:

Never stop enjoying your life while preparing for GATE or any other exam

Our exams ended on 20 November and now was the time for winter break(upto beginning of march). After I reached home I gave a full test only to score less than 60. This was the effect of not studying for around 20 days. Around this time my friend told me about GO facebook group and asked me join it. At first I was not impressed with the group and I could not understand why the Admin was adamant on staying away from test series. My initial reaction was this group sucks.But after sometime I found some good questions posted on it. So I decided to use it for one hour everyday. Things that were remaining- some part of maths, sequential circuits, aptitude, Decidability in TOC and some part of algorithm. For probability I used SC gupta. For other topics in maths I used NCERT books. For sequential circuits NesoAcademy videos on youtube was used. During the month of December I studied for around 12 hours each day. I would wake up at 8AM, start taking my full length test at 10 AM, finish at 12:30(leave 30minutes for aptitude),and then check my mistakes. After this I would take my lunch and again sit from 2–7. Then I would watch TV, have my dinner and again continue from 9PM-around 1AM(sometimes 2AM). My father and mother have never seen me studying with this much dedication. They supported me with all they can. Both of them never asked me to do anything and even if I tried to do something they would ask me to focus on my study and leave it to them. At the end of December I had covered everything apart from aptitude. I practiced aptitude for 6–7 days and found it boring and then left it hoping to get 12–13 marks in GATE exam. After this I decreased my studying time to 8–9 hours and didn’t study anything new. In the last few days I solved previous year question papers. I found GATEOVERFLOW site very useful during this time as madeeasy book had lot of wrong answers. While solving previous year papers I finally got why Arjun Suresh sir focuses too much on previous year questions and less on test series. Test series questions were nothing but previous year questions with minor modifications. So if one solves previous year questions then he does not have to depend too much on test series. Still test series is a must for improving speed and accuracy. While attempting tests I did a lot of experiments. During the initial days I used to solve 10 marks section and then the 2 marks section. But I found that towards the end of tests my accuracy decreases. So I should attempt 20 marks section first and then one marks section. It is my advice to every future candidate that try to experiment something like that and find something which suits you. And not take test series too seriously, if u are getting good marks keep going and if u getting bad marks try to see if they are asking irrelevant questions. Sometimes test series put questions which are not even in GATE syllabus and sometimes they put a question which is too hard to solve. Some even ask a lot of theoretical questions. You would know these things if you have solved some previous year papers which I had not done. The great thing during this period was that my never rank never crossed above 10 while giving tests(ACE, Madeeasy, Gateforum and testbook). It is not necessary to join 4 test series like I did. Two are sufficient. I attempted 4 because I started giving full tests too early and hence completely used ACE and madeeasy. I hoped that I would be able to replicate my performance in test series during the GATE exam. The only thing that worried me that I used to make a lot of mistakes while solving easy questions but my accuracy was good with difficult questions(since I solved them carefully).

In the month of February I gave 4 mock tests. And in the 3rd test for the first time my rank crossed above 50. I was terrified. Have made a lot of mistakes. On the day before the GATE paper I gave another test and in this my rank was above 100. My friend has already warned me against taking tests one day before the exam but when I had listened to my friends? Above 100 rank was a disaster but I told myself not to worry about that. The final exam is the only one that matters. I watched two movies on that day: Thor Ragnarok and Wonder Woman. Finally I went to sleep at 11PM hoping to get a sound sleep and wake up at 6AM(since my exam centre was far away from my home). But I slept till 12 AM only. I found myself awakened at 12 AM with my throat dry and feeling extremely thirsty. I drank a glass of water and came back to bed hoping to sleep again. But sleep didn’t come till 3AM. I slept between 3AM and 6AM. I woke up and I knew that I am in serious trouble since I haven’t slept properly. I met my friend(another GATE candidate) in the bus. I told him that I want the paper to be as difficult as possible and he just smiled(He wasn’t surprised, has known me all my B.Tech). For future candidates I would advise not to take any test on the previous day of examination.

The D-day

The exam started. As I have always done during tests I started with 2 marks questions. I couldn’t solve the first question. I skippped that question only to meet a question from database which I was not being able to solve. I was shocked. How could I not solve something from database, my favourite subject. I tried harder but at last I gave up on that question. 10 minutes gone, nothing solved. Couldn’t solve the 3rd question either, worst possible start. I started to panic but then I told myself if these are hard for me they are hard for everyone. Finally the 4th question appeared. It was on hard disk and we had to calculate the power consumption. I did it and did it carefully. Took some time but the important thing was that it gave me some confidence. But then the 5th question I was once again unable to solve. I wanted the paper to be difficult but not so much difficult that I couldn’t solve it. 30 minutes were gone. But after this my luck changed. I solved most of the upcoming questions. I looked at the time, 1 hour 40 minutes gone. But still I was satisfied. Now I moved to 1 marks section. It felt too easy. Solved within 30 minutes(left only 1 question). Now attempted aptitude, done in 20 minutes(one 2 marks question left). Looked at the time, 30 minutes time. Now comes the part which cost me my under 10 rank(if not, definitely under 50). Upto this time I had attempted 55 questions. And if I had done nothing for the next 30 minutes I would have got 70.66(definitely under 50 rank). And if had just revised my 2 marks section I would have got under 10 rank. But I was caught in a dilemma. When I used to attempt test series most of the times I had faced this situation where at the end of aptitude part I had done almost 55 questions. The situation was the same here. But the time remaining was different. During test series I used to complete those questions in 2 hours. So the next half hour I used to revise my 2 marks section and the last hour was devoted to solve those unattempted questions. But here in the real exam I had just 30 minutes. I had to make a decision and I made a wrong one. I decided to solve the unattempted questions. I could attempt only 5 questions during that period and all 5 were wrong(2 of them were objective type 2 marks question and hence brought down my marks to 69.33). And among these questions there was that database question which I was initially able to solve. I again wasted a lot of time in solving that and I finally did it wrong. But I never regret for this question. The question which I regret the most was a networking question based on carrier sensing. After wasting 10 minutes I found the answer to be 50(it was numerical type, 2 marks). Before writing the answer I read the question once more and it said something like rounding to the nearest integer. This got me confused and I thought why were they asking to round it. Then I made some complicated assumptions and I finally wrote the answer as 51( 50 was the right answer). When the paper ended I had attempted 91 marks. I felt that the paper was easy and definitely this time someone would score more than 90. There are many lessons here:

  • Don’t panic if your exam starts in a bad way.
  • Don’t get stuck on a particular question cause it was from your favourite subject
  • Follow the same strategy as u did while taking tests
  • Avoid making complicated assumptions.
  • When your brain says something else but your intuition tells something different, follow your intuition. The brain always complicates things

I knew that I would not get under 10 but still expected to be under 50. I came home and opened gatecse overflow to match my answers with other people. All my excitedness disappeared after some time. Most of the questions that I checked, I found that I had solved them wrong. I thought that I have only checked 20 questions and 8 of them are already wrong. No need to check any further. I felt depressed for 2–3 days. Then I started preparing for infosys(company to come when the college reopened) since I knew that I am getting nothing from GATE. I also started my B. tech project to take my mind off. Some days after response sheet came and then by using GATE predictor I checked my marks. It read 72 total, 2.66 negative, 69.33 final. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Then I checked my answers. Entire aptitude section was correct. Out of 24 one marks questions attempted, 23 were correct. In the 2 marks section, the questions that I had not earlier checked were correct. Finally I felt some sense of relief. When I started for GATE preparation I would not have accepted this rank but the same rank now made me more happy than ever. As I was checking my response sheet I checked that network question and found the answer as 50. I literally slapped myself. I knew that those 2 marks would hurt in future(They did hurt, didn’t get IISC as well as ONGC). The lesson learned here:

Never calculate your marks too early. Wait for the response sheet to come.

Time went by and my rank kept on increasing. It stabilised after reaching 60 and I predicted my rank to under 70. On 16th March as I was browsing gatecse overflow I saw that someone had posted that GATE results were out. I went to the site and logged in to found my rank as 67. I ran outside and told all my friends about my rank. One of the happiest days of my life.

I would like to thank:

  • My family who always supported me in this quest
  • A few teachers from my college. Can’t mention their names, it’s better if they keep thinking that I hate them.
  • Gateoverflow community
  • Madeeasy
  • My classmates during my B Tech who provided indirect motivation by saying things which hurt me deeply. They kept the fire burning
  • My friends who listened to my nonsense during the first two years and some more nonsense during the last two years.
  • Google
  • StackExchange network
  • Standard books
  • Nesoacademy
37
I am planning to give UGC NET exams in Computer Science. I have a big time gap between the duration my PG course and now. I expect proper guidance based on the following points.

* I understand that there are lots of similarities between the pattern of questions between GATE and NET.

* There is always a gap between what we study in theory and what is asked in exams (both theoritical and numerical based questions). Everywhere in blogs, people advise that start solving previous year questions after refreshing the basics. But in reality, for thousands of people (from checking with my friends circle & saw people with same state in many study groups in what's app and facebook, I observed this) who do self study are clueless about how the gap between the theory we study and the questions we face in these exams can be filled.

* I would like to start from the scratch and have no any constraints or issues from learning things in this journey.

* I expect a proper, practical & down to earth support/guidance/suggestions for this. I hope such guidance would be helpful to many people including me. Thanks in advance.
38

Hi there!!

I am Deepak Poonia, AIR 67, GATE CS 2018. What I want to share today with you guys is not my GATE journey or GATE Strategy etc.. But How poor was my College academic life(B.Tech) before GATE.

Just like many of you, I too was a bright student in my school life...Always topped in the class. Got pretty good marks in my Board exams and Parents were quite happy. Then came JEE and AIEEE exams (At that time, They used to conduct different exams for NITs and IITs..AIEEE was mostly the exam to get you into NITs)..I passed AIEEE exam and was getting some pretty good NIT but I had always dreamt of getting into IITB..So I left NIT and prepared for one more year But as the time passed and Exams came near, I went into extreme depression and left Studying....did not (could not) study for entire 2-3 months and couldn't crack JEE as well as AIEEE that year. So, I got into whatever college I could get (It was a State Govt College) and Started my B.Tech.

Again, Just like many of you, I had thought, in the beginning of the First semester, that I will study my ass off and Top this college..But that all went down into trash when I talked to my seniors and felt the environment of the college....Almost everyone in my college just wanted to pass the semesters somehow (with or without good percentage) and somehow get placed into some Mass recruiter company. And I, being one of them, did the same. Studied for One night before the exam like almost everyone else and Tried to pass through my B.Tech.... But I even couldn't do that. And I passed by Grace in one subject in my Second semester. But it was just the trailer of what was coming next. I mostly spent my time in college Watching TV series, Hanging around with friends and doing stuffs every college student does..But Not Studying. So, In the Third Semester, I got $5$ backlogs (out of 6 subjects)..Which didn't break my heart because I saw it coming.

After this terrible result, My Friends thought that Now I will take College academic life seriously and start studying. But I disappointed them and Got $4$ backlogs in Fourth semester  and $5$ backlogs in Fifth semester.

By this time, I had become immune to Backlogs or semester results. So, I even skipped appearing in Exams few times..And couldn't clear my Backlogs on time. And because of this, I couldn't sit in campus placements.... But this could not affect me... until the day came when I got a call from my Mom. She told me that someone in my society got placed in some big company with big package in pocket. I could feel what my Mom wanted to say to me without actually saying it..and for the first time in entire college time, I regretted what I had done and hadn't done. I couldn't sleep for few nights because My college was about to end and I had 14 Backlogs to clear. So, I needed something that could change my life and neglect the effect of backlogs in my B.Tech. And just at that time, My dearest friend told me to prepare for GATE.

So, College time ended. My life was all messed up..Had 14 Backlogs to clear which my Parents did not know about. Didn't have any knowledge, whatsoever, of Computer Science.  And with this burden on my head, I started my GATE preparation. And my GATE journey began.

I started learning subjects one by one and make detailed notes of every subject. And Though, I did not know anything of any technical subject, I bought Standard books of almost each subject and Started reading them alongside. In August, I had to go back to College to appear in Backlog exams. So, I missed DS and TOC subjects. In September, I fell severely sick and again missed the DM subject. In the end of October, I again had to go to College to appear in remaining Backlog exams and I missed CO subject. So, In the last two months of GATE 2017 Exam, I just focused on the subjects that I could learn in the last 7-8 months and appeared in GATE 2017 exam..without 4 major subjects in my fold....So, I could only secure AIR 1278 in GATE 2017 scoring 52 Marks. But the good news was that I had cleared all my Backlogs in this Year. But as I could not get good enough rank in GATE, So, I made my mind to prepare for GATE one more time as I wanted IISc for me.

So, I started preparing again and this time I did not want to leave any stone unturned and told myself that I will learn from wherever I can learn..So, I Started solving each problem on GO, Reading Standard books for each subject etc.. And I did whatever I could do in this year of preparation. And Finally, the day came, I secured AIR 67 in GATE CS 2018. Did some silly mistakes which brought me down but I could still get IISc this time and Now I am going to become an IIScian, effectively from 24 July 2018.

So, I would say If you believe in yourself then your past doesn't matter. Just give your best shot and do not give up on your Goals. Even if you had terrible past, you can neglect its effect on your future.

All the very best future aspirants!!

Edit 1: I secured AIR 53 in GATE 2020.

Edit 2: Driven by my passion and interest for teaching and GATE CSE, I started Go Classes for GATE CSE Preparation. Students preparing for GATE CSE, join Goclasses for best learning experience:

www.goclasses.in

Join GATE 2023 Complete Course and learn everything by properly understanding everything. Don't by-heart, don't do Rote-learning of any concept.

"GO" for the best!! 

39
Gate rank : 201

Score: 794

Pre exam preparations :

I started the preparation in August 2017, first of all i checked the complete gate syllabus, and then i arranged the standard books (that were given in "What to read series" by bikram sir). Then i had to decide the order of subjects to be covered. At that point i had some of the following points in my mind :

1. I can follow one of two strategies - tough subjects last or tough Subjects first. I decided to go with tough subjects last, because i didn't wanted to loose motivation at the starting of preparation itself. (You can go with any strategy, it's just your convenience, there's no pros and cons of any of them).

2. I knew some of the subjects which when covered in series will give some advantage. Like C programming, Data structure and Algorithms should be done together. Another is TOC and Compiler. And also digital logic and computer organisation.

3. And i was suggested not to leave Maths for the end. So i had to start maths in the beginning and Complete it first or i can also do it side by side. I decided to do it side by side (reason was that i was comfortable with mathematics and i needed some break after some days of studying a particular subject). So i decided to do maths on weekends.

I started covering subjects one by one and preparing short notes while covering the subjects. Once a subject was completed, revised complete subject and then practised only previous year gate questions from go pdfs. While doing previous years many new techniques, tricks, concepts and ways of solving questions were discovered, i appended all of them in my notes. Again revised the subject and moved on to next subject.

Coming to the weekend schedule, the strategy for maths was same. In the weekend, I also revised the work done in the weekdays.

When the whole syllabus was done, i completed a full revision and two rounds of previous years. And then finally a full round of revision.

After that i gave test series. I found that subject wise tests were only a wastage of time. So i only gave full length mock tests. Best test series i found out were GO and madeeasy. The one thing i kept in mind while giving test series was that, test series are not for assessing our potential (on basis of marks) but test series are used for time management and forming the proper strategy for giving the main exam. I must tell you that i never got good marks in any of the tests but i gave good time to assess the tests and my performance. And worked on the mistakes i performed.

In the last seven days i revised once the whole syllabus, gave one test on the last fourth day and relaxed on the day before the exam.

When the results were out i knew i had to prepare for interview because there was a very narrow chance of getting into an old iit.

Interview preparation :

For interview preparations, i read 30-40 interview experiences and found out the following facts :

1. You have to prepare Algorithms and maths properly, there's a very high chance in every institute thst questions will be framed from.these subjects.

2. You have to prepare two core subjects strongly because interviewing professor will ask you your favourite subjects. So you must be prepared for that.

Keeping these things in mind, i selected DS, Algo and operating systems as my strong subjects. I covered almost every relevant proof from CLRS. practised the applications of various data structures and also covered the correctness of algorithms properly. Did almost the same thing in maths also. For OS, i read galvin again and also referred some of the PDFs of various universities for concept clarification. I also revised whole of the gate syllabus again for a safe side. And at last practised all of the previous year questions again because in written tests of various institutes all of the subjects were covered.

Interview experiences :

IITK Mtech/MS :

For both the courses there was a common written and programming test. For the written test, we had a choice of doing one of two sections : theory (maths and algo) or systems (all other subjects). I selected theory because i  prepared maths and algo very well. The questions were good and many of them were not from the gate syllabus so I recommend you to check out and go through the syllabus given by them. I expected nearly 24 marks out of 30. Systems part was easy.

In programming two very easy questions were present, one was to find the second max element in array and other was traversing the string and extracting all 14 base characters and return the equivalent decimal number obtained by appending all the extracted characters. Almost everyone completed the questions in the given time. The process for mtech was over with this. But the candidates for MS had to wait for another day to appear for the interview.

In the interview they asked my favourite subject. I told them algorithms. These questions were asked :

Name the shortest path distance algorithm (any one).

Does djikstra works on negative edge contained graph?

Does it work for graph containing negative weight cycle? Why not ?

Show the correctness of djikstra.

Which algorithm works well for graph with negative weighted cycle?

Write algo for gcd, and prove its correctness, give complexity and prove that the complexity is correct.

And the interview was over.

Result was i was waitlisted at number 4 for Mtech and at number 16 (i guess) for MS.

Edit : I am selected for IITK MTech in the third list of admissions.

Next was Iisc mtech research CDS CS :

There was a written test with five questions and they were very easy (easier than the GATE). I attempted all of them. I was shortlisted for the interview. On the written test sheet, We were asked to select the labs for which we want to appear for the interview, i selected DREAM & MARS. In the interview following questions were asked :

Show how djikstra algorithm works with example. Show its correctness.

What page replacement policies do you know. Give an example where MFU performs better than LRU. And vice versa too

Why is synchronisation required in OS, how it is achieved?

Explain producer consumer problem and write the proper code. Then they asked me to improve the code and a good discussion was done on the same topic for sometime. and the interview was done.

Next was iisc csa mtech Research:

Written test contained good questions of gate level and time was sufficient. Questions were from ds, algo, os, toc and compiler. I was selected for the interview and the questions that were asked were :

Write code for merging two sorted linked lists in place.

Give a representation method for a tree in which there can be variable number of children.

Where is OS stored?

What all entities are involved in a process switch? Who schedules the scheduler? Are the registers of dispatcher different from the standard registers?

How does a process communicates with the OS ?

The interview was over and we were free to leave the campus.

Results were declared and I was selected for CDS CS.

In the end i will like to give some tips to the future aspirants :

1. If you ever doubt your capabilities or any thought of failure comes to you mind, do not think about that for a long time. Leave these thoughts and focus on your preparation. Almost everyone preparing for GATE gets such thoughts but those who keep them aside are the ones who create a chance of being successful in the exam.

2. Preparation time of 6 months is also enough so don't panic thinking that you have 8 months or 10 months. But also that never means that you have to be serious only for 6 months, if you have more time, utilise that for your betterment, and that can improve your rank a lot.

3. Start coding as early as possible. It gives you an edge at many points. So, better not to be late. You may count the advantages as coding is required for placements, for gate also and coding improves your logical thinking too.

4. Do not relax if you have a rank between 150 and 800. Prepare for research interviews from the date of GATE result itself. People fail because they prepare only in the end for interviews.

And all the best to all of you :-)

Many people were asking me the reason of choosing IITK MTech over IISc CDS MTech Research. I will reveal it here because it might help you if you get in the same position. IITK Mtech was a two year course where i would have all the options to try and then to do work/specialize in the domain where i am interested in. In IISc i would have been bounded to a single lab and would have to specialize in that domain only. I was from a below average class college and i was totally unaware of the available domains and my pure interest, that's why i preferred first exploring and then specializing. So, IITK MTech is my final decision and will be joining the institute shortly :)
40
How was the exam ?