Most viewed posts in Preparation Experience

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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.

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How was the exam ?
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Backstory

Hi, I am Darshit Gandhi. At my time, JEE was not compulsory after 12th Std in Gujarat, we had GUJCET exam. So I gave GUJCET and scored pretty well in that exam. I was not having any craze for IITs during that time. So I decided to pursue my B.E. in CSE from one of the topmost college of Gujarat. During my B.E. also, I had no plans of doing  M.Tech.

In my second year of B.E., one of my friend asked me to go with him in the demo class for GATE. I went with him to give him some company, but was unaware of the fact that this thing was gonna change my future.

 

Attempt 1 : GATE CS 2021 - The Beginning

Even though I have joined an local offline coaching in my 2nd year, but I was not at all taking it seriously. I was just attending the classes, making notes, then I come home and just forgot to revise. This was my life for 1.5 years. Initially, it was very difficult for me to understand subjects like OS, DBMS, COA, etc. as it was only my 2nd year, and we were just studying C++ in our college. But one good thing in my coaching was that once they complete the syllabus, they start to teach again the whole syllabus. So, after around 1 year, we started to study our whole syllabus again in around July 2019. And now this time, I was understanding what was taught in the class. But now also, after coming home, I was not doing anything. I was treating this like some college semester exam and this was my biggest mistake. Revision is very very very important if we are preparing for GATE exam. It is a very boring and tedious thing, but we cannot get good rank without doing enough revision (There may always be some exceptions). 

Anyways, until Feb 2020, I was just attending the classes and making notes and nothing extra. Then, I realized that I am having only 1 year for my GATE exam. Now I was worried wondering that how will I complete 10-12 subjects in 1 year along with college work. So from March 2020 onwards, I started my serious GATE preparation. I started to take subjects one by one, started studying them, referred notes, google and also youtube. Initially, I was following youtube channels like Ravindrababu Ravula, Knowledge Gate, Gate Smashers, etc. and websites like Gate overflow, geeksforgeeks, etc. So I studied the subjects in this order : Discrete Maths → TOC → Compiler → DBMS → DS → Algorithms → OS → CN. I haven’t touched COA because that was the most difficult subject for me. I haven’t touched Maths, Aptitude and Digital because I was in a dilemma that I will complete this all subjects in January because these are “EASY” subjects. But I was very wrong. Also, at that time, “PUBG mobile” was at its peak in India, I used to play everyday from 2 pm to 5 pm with my friends. The thing is that I always underestimated GATE exam. Finally PUBG mobile got banned in October and I guess that was some kind of relief for me from this gaming addiction.

I tried to complete my syllabus (except the 4 subjects) till December end. Then I tried giving some tests from Made Easy test series and was scoring decent marks. Now, I did the same mistake during this time also as I did initially when I started my preparation. I was just “reading” the questions which I answered wrong, not “understanding” it. Also, I was not checking the questions that I answered right. They are equally important as the wrong ones, as we might have got the correct answer by some wrong method. 

I was planning to do Maths, Aptitude, Digital and COA in January, but our 7th semester Final exams were scheduled in January due to pandemic. So now,my most of January went for this college exams, and I resumed my GATE studies from around 20th January. Now, the link has broken, and I have also decided to give GATE 2022 next year. I was very scared because my 4 subjects were left to study and I also need to do revision of previous studied subjects. So I decided to go with revision of my previous and left the remaining subjects. I gave around 8-10 full length tests and my average marks were around 54-55 out of 100 and I was getting rank around 500-1000.

13th February 2021 – I woke up at 9 am. My exam slot was in the afternoon. I did not touched any books on that day. I was laying down and closing my eyes and sometime just roaming in the house. Time came, and I went to gave the exam. Initially, I solved 2 questions correctly, so that gave me some confidence, but the 3rd question was from Paging (OS) and I took around 20 min to do that question. I was not moving forward because I know that I will definitely solve that question. I got some odd number as the answer and I was not sure whether I solved it correctly or not (I came to know much later that it was correct). So now I just solved 3 question in 30 min and now I only had 150 min left for 62 questions. My heartbeat increased like anything. I continued solving other questions, but there was a lot of pressure on me at that time. I was very angry at me when the exam got over, but I kept the smile on my face. I asked my friends who were at that exam centre, they also told that the paper was very difficult and their exam went ok. I was somehow relieved after listening that everyone found that the exam was tough, but then also deep down, I knew that I could definitely do better. After the answer key came, I got to know that I can easily score 7-8 marks more if I was able to calm myself down during the actual exam. 

It will not matter how much we have studied, only thing that matters is that how are we able to handle ourself during that 3 hours of the actual exam.

My result came early than the actual mentioned date, I had zero expectation of getting a rank under 300 this time. I opened the website and found out the I got AIR 732. Was not happy and was not sad either. Getting under 1000 rank in GATE CS is a very big achievement in itself. I might have got IIT BHU, IIT Dhanbad, NIT Trichy, NIT Warangal, NIT Surathkal, etc, but my goal was only top 7 IITs. So now I have decided that I will prepare for GATE 2022.

 

Attempt 2 : GATE CS 2022 - The Conclusion

For GATE 2022, I only have to prepare those subjects which I left in GATE 2021, revise those previous subjects and solve more and more problems. I got placed from my Campus Placements and decided to take that job as a backup and prepared for GATE 2022, so that I don’t have to worry that what if I don’t get under 300 rank this time also. So having something in backup is a plus point. It will be very difficult to prepare along with a job, but believe me, it will help you lose some of the burden from your head.

I started with COA, but then had a 2 months break because my 8th semester of college was ongoing and I had to complete my lab assignments and project work. I started my GATE preparation again in July 2021 but not full fledged, because I had my job from 9 am to 7 pm and then studying at night with tired mind was very difficult. But then also, I made up my mind to study in whatever time I get. Moreover, this year, Valorant was at its peek. So I used to play everyday for around 2-3 hours from 8 pm to 9pm/10pm. Yeah, I know, I really need to do something regarding my gaming addiction :( 

I used to start studying from 9 pm/10 pm and study till 2 am/3 am. On Saturday/Sunday, I used to study for 4-6 hours. I would suggest to study more on normal weekdays than on weekend and relax on weekends. Watch some movie/ web series during the weekend and relax your mind. I might have completed around 15-20 web series and many-many movies during this span. 

Now I know that this time, I need some coaching to study the subjects like COA, maths, etc. I cannot do it by myself. So I got the Unacademy subscription in Unacademy’s scholarship test and started to prepare from it. I studied COA from Vishwadeep Gothi sir and that was the best course of COA that I have ever seen. I got each and every concept that Vishwadeep sir taught and I was very happy that now I finally started to understand COA. I studied other subjects like Maths (Engg and Discrete) , digital, etc from Unacademy. Yes, I left aptitude this time also :(

In like November end, I finished the new subjects and decided to start with revision of the old subjects. Trust me, this was the worst part. I barely could remember anything from the subjects that I studied before. I should have revised those subjects in regular intervals. Believe me, this revision process is very very boring, but we need to do it in regular intervals, otherwise it will be very difficult for us to grasp everything during actual exam. Anyways, I decided not to stop and I started studying my previous subjects notes from starting. 

 I started to give tests and I saw that there is no improvement in my marks from the last year. Till February, I gave around 10-15 full length tests and this year, the highest marks that I got was 54. Last year, my average marks was 54 and now, after giving 1 extra year, finishing all the subjects, highest marks that I got is 54. This was really frustrating for me. It feels like I have done nothing in this last 1 year. I decided not to worry about it now as it cannot be changed. This time, instead of just reading the wrong questions from my tests, I understood it and made sure that if this pattern comes next time then I can solve it. But still, I was not checking the questions that I got right, due to the lack of time.

5th February 2022 – I woke up at 7 am as I had to reach the exam centre by 8 am. I solved the 1st question quickly, but the the real villain came – MSQs. There were approx 15 MSQ in GATE CS 2022. 15 might seem a very small number but this made the whole difference. In 95% of cases, I was sure about the 3 out of 4 options of MSQs but not sure about the fourth option. GATE 2022 CS paper came out more difficult than GATE 2021 CS. Because of MSQ, my confidence went down drastically. I was very very scared because this was my second attempt and I don’t want to lose this one. So I left all the MSQ and started doing MCQ and NAT. But in the mind, only one thing was there, how the hell am I going to solve these many MSQs. Also, along with MSQs, one more problem came. My favourite subject was Computer Networks, and in GATE 2022 CS, very tough questions were asked from Computer Networks. These two things really had a very bad effect on me. But then, I thought to keep solving as many questions as I can. I was just literally solving the questions in a hurry and then directly went to other question, I was not even checking the questions that I solved. My mind was panicking at that moment and I thought the I might have to give GATE one more time next year.

This time, after I completed my paper, I just ran out of the exam centre without talking to anyone and went home. I was very scared that I didn’t even checked my answers when the actual answer key came out. I was behaving like I have not at all given the GATE exam. After thinking much, I decided to take admission in any college that I will get at my rank, and will not go for GATE 2023. I was expecting around 700-1000 rank.

 

Climax

It was 16th March i guess, time was 11:30 pm. I saw in one to the telegram groups that one person has typed “results are out”. My heartbeat increased and I instantly checked out the website. I was shocked and happy at the same time. Turned out that every GATE 2022 CS aspirant found the paper difficult. I entered my GATE registration number and password and as soon as I logged in, I scrolled down to see my rank. I had secured AIR 227 in GATE CS 2022. I was shocked for sometime after seeing the result and I was completely silent for a minute. I logged out and then tried logging in again, thought maybe it was some glitch. But it was real. I really secured AIR 227. I told my mom (who was sitting just next to me) that “mummy result aavi gayu and aa vakhte mane pakku IIT madi jase” (Mom, results are out and I will definitely get IIT this time). My father was sleeping in the next room, I woke him up and told “pappa result aai gayu, aakha India ma maaro 227 rank aayo che” (Dad, results are out, I got rank 227 in whole India). I was really happy and emotional. My 4 year GATE journey has finally came to an end.

 

Points to Remember – Ending Credits

  • Never lose hope. The minute you lose hope, it is all over. Nothing can be achieved without hope and confidence. Just make your goals clear and work hard to achieve it even if you have to sacrifice something you like.
  • Revision is must. Revise all the subjects at regular interval otherwise it will be very difficult to grasp all the subjects at once in the end
  • Make good and crisp notes, this will help you to revise the subjects more efficiently.
  • Don’t leave out any subjects. I heard some people saying that we don’t need to prepare all the subjects, we can leave 1-2 subjects. But what if some very easy question comes out of the subject that you left and a hard question comes out of the subject that you have prepared. (This happened with me, a very easy question came from COA in GATE 2021).
  • Try completing your whole syllabus till November and start solving the test series from November only. Revision should be carried out in regular intervals.
  • Analyze the test series properly. Don’t just read out the questions that you did wrong, try to understand that concept and in future if any question comes from that concept, make sure you solve it. Also try to check the question that you did right, whether you did it with the correct method or if there any other shortcut way to solve the same questions or not.
  • Don’t ever rely on test series marks. Don;t get demotivated if you get less marks in test series. There is no relation of test series with the actual exam (Highest marks that I got in test series while preparing for GATE 2022 was 54).
  • Try focussing more on theory concepts more than numericals as I think in next few years, MSQ will take over. If you study the theory concepts, you will become strong both in theory and problem solving. Trust me, it feels worse when you know 3 out of 4 options in the MSQ and not sure about the 4th option.
  • Make sure you stay relax during the actual 3 hours of the exam. It will not matter if you have studied enough, but if you panicked during the exam, it can become worse.
  • During the exam, try to given a fix amount of time to each question, if you are not able to solve it in that time and if you sure that you will definitely get an answer, then only proceed otherwise move to next question.
  • Maths and Aptitude consists of 27 marks. Don’t think of neglecting these subjects, these are very scoring subjects.
  • Time management is a key thing in GATE exam. If you don’t manage you time well, then it will create a big problem during your actual exam.
  • Don’t study 14-18 hours one day and 2-3 hours on other day. Study for 4-6 hours consistently. And do other things as well to relax your mind. I use to play PC/mobile games to relax my mind.
  • Don’t discuss the paper after your exam gets over, just go home and do everything that you have been planning to do since long time. There is not point of regretting as we cannot change our answers now. Open the question paper only when the actual answer key comes.

 

Post – credit scene

A big Thank you to my family, teachers and friends who have pushed me higher throughout this whole journey.

Hope this article is helpful. I might not have the best rank but still I hope that it will help you in your preparation journey.

Hope you achieve all your dreams and make your parents and all your loved ones proud. Best of luck.

Thanks For Reading.

Darshit Gandhi.

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Hi, everyone I am AIR 89 2021 general category at IIT Delhi. I came back here to give you a slight outlook of the curriculum of IITD.

First things First.

If you are thinking that getting into IITs is easier than surviving into them. Then you are absolutely wrong. Gate preparation is nothing in comparison to the curriculum that IITs offer specifically, what IITD holds. Because that is what going to shape you towards a good future, so get ready for it. Be hardworking.

Please see the course structure first then select any IIT for the Masters/ etc at your COAP. Don’t be greedy with the choice that Oh, these are some top institutes then they are best. It is not the case always. Some institutes focus more on the research side( Theoretical aspect ) than application( say coding ). In the first semester maybe you don’t have a choice to choose your dream courses.

Lots of students are completely empty with the course they want to go with, they are just looking at which institute gives the best placements, some times its not about placements. You might not able to get good CGPA to sit for placements in your dream company if you are not able to score well. And to score well you should study what you like or you are good at.  Say you want to learn about AI or machine learning but there is no course here for you at a semester. Or you can’t choose anything in the First semester. This is sad, at this stage, you are mature enough to choose your stuff and should be moving forward in that direction. But the institute doesn’t offer this to you.

IITD don’t give choice in the First sem to choose your subjects in MTECH CSE. So, 25% of the course timeline is wasted. Wonderful. This is happening at the institute of eminence. Study boring subjects that don’t suit you. So look at the course outline first before getting into the institute. Try IIT M, IIT Roorkee they are very good choices and also ranked 1 and some respectively among all engineering colleges of India.

One thing I like about IITs is that they entertain your questions/ doubts very well and encourage you to ask also. By default language here will ENGLISH. So get comfortable with it as early as possible, otherwise, you will be silent spectator with the course. But like here also some Prof are good some are bad with their teaching skills. Not questioning what they know. No, doubt they have the best research papers published among the Indian subcontinent. But they lack with their teaching skills. And like in every Indian college courses rotates to different professors every sem which makes none expert on a subject but some are fixed on subjects but the rest are not. The best you can get in IIT is when you are physically present in the IITs and and interacting with like-minded students and profs around you from the globe. And sharing beautiful thoughts. I hope next sem will be offline and I will enjoy the institute better. !!

Hope you are preparing well don’t forget to solve the previous year papers twice or thrice before Gate. All the best.
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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.

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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.

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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 :)
28
I started my preparation in my 6th semester of B.Tech . I completed my B.Tech in IT from VSSUT, Burla (a state government institute in Odisha). The lockdown for Corona gave me a lot of time to prepare for GATE and I was able to look after my college curriculum side by side in online mode. I prepared using online video lectures and practiced questions from GateOverflow (Use GO Book). All the Online lectures will help you a lot to build your basic concepts, but don't think that it is enough. You have to practice a lot of questions to get a good rank in GATE. Previous year question are best for practicing questions and to test your understanding of concepts. Before taking tests from test series, I solved the previous year question once. And totally twice ( last 15 years). I was preparing with my two other friends and we used to motivate each other regularly because while preparing for GATE it is very easy to get distracted and demotivated. I completed the entire syllabus and long notes by September. Except Maths ( please don't neglect maths or keep delaying unless you are good at maths).I covered maths in November and December thinking that Its easy but ended up getting less time for practicing. So for revision I went for 3 iterations of all subjects in a round robin fashion. First iteration took more than one month to revise all subjects and further iterations took lesser. During revision schedule I was taking topic and subject tests and trying to figure out my weak areas, silly mistakes and conceptual gap. I was maintaining a  mistake copy to track these things which helped a lot in further revision iterations. I started taking full length mock tests in December. I was Also taking subject tests in between if I find that I am scoring less in that particular subject in full mocks. You can build your own strategy but PYQs are very important because many minor topics are sometimes not covered in test series. I was identifying those topics and used to revise. Initially I was scoring less in full length mocks but gradually it increased as my revision went on. I solved the topic wise PYQs while watching videos of that subject/topic. In the last month mocks are very important. Give as many as possible but after every mock test analyse your mistakes, weak section and uncovered section.

Keep talking to seniors who have a experience in GATE to stay motivated. Don't get demotivated if you are not able to solve a question, or if you are getting less marks in mocks. Just learn from your mistakes and keep upgrading. If you do a lot of mistakes in mock, it will reduce your probability of commiting mistakes in final GATE exam.

Stay focused, have faith in yourself and give your best !!

~Pranab Kumar Rout
29

Disclaimer: Very Very Long!!

Exams:

Gate: Score - 717
Jest: Part A - 44 marks. Part B - not disclosed

Preparation
May 2016 holidays - Solved prev yr gate qns of Theory of Computation. 
End of Dec 2016 - Jan Beg: Read few topics from Rosen Discrete Math, DS and algo and solved prev year Gate qns. Watched some videos of Shai Simson for revision of TOC.
Jan - Feb: Solved and revised prev yr qns of DBMS,OS,Digital Logic. Solved few topics from Computer organization. Skipped networking. Gave few mock tests but scored poorly. I was almost about to give up at this point but convinced myself that this preparation will be useful if I take a drop. I stopped giving Made easy tests because it was lowering my confidence. Gave some tests of virtual gate and Gate Overflow.
About JEST exam: Not many know about this exam. but it is one of the most challenging exams I have given. Topics are mainly Discrete Math, DS and algo, TOC, Linear algebra, Probability. There are 2 parts. Part A - MCQ. Part B - Subjective Questions. Unfortunately I don't remember those questions now. So I made it a point to note down all questions in my future inteviews. 
In subjective part I attended 5 questions. More emphasis is given to proving the solution correct. I don't think I answered any of them completely correct. Yet I was called for the interview at IMSC. IISC considers the Part A score of JEST for M.Tech Research but cutoff is high. IMSC calls for interview based on Part B performance.


[The following description is based on my memory and the points I have noted after the interviews.]


IMSC interview experience: 
IMSC is a totally peaceful place. I reached early and waited for a hour. I read the quotes in the walls and passed my time.
I was totally nervous. There was about 5-6 (or 7, I forgot) interviewers. They made me feel comfortable and were very friendly.
Initially they asked me to draw automata of few regular expressions. I drew it correctly but even I couldn't understand what I have drawn. So they asked me to draw again.Then they asked me can you say WHY they are correct. I started explaining but they were expecting a FORMAL PROOF which I realised only after the interview!! Then they asked me to draw a minimal automata for the language (a*b*)*. I said it is equal to (a+b)*. Then they asked me to prove it. I said any string x in (a*b*)* will be in (a+b)* because (a+b)* is set of all strings in alphabet {a,b}. So (a*b*)* is a subset of (a+b)*. Now any string x in (a+b)* will consist of a sequence of 0 or more a's, followed by sequence of 0 or more b's, followed by 0 or more a's, followed by sequence of 0 or more b's and so on. So it will be in (a*b*)*. So (a+b)* is also subset of (a*b*)*. So both are equal. Then they asked me to prove the same using Induction. I made terrible mistakes which I realised and said to them. However I was not able to correct them at the time of interview. It was quite simple but I got tensed at that time. 

  • The second question was: Given a simple graph having more than 1 vertices prove that atleast 2 vertex have the same degree.

                Proved it using Pigeonhole principle.

  • The third question was: Given a graph having a odd degree vertex prove that there exists another vertex having odd degree which is connected to it.

              Proved it using Handshaking Theorem.
Finally we discussed about AVL trees. The discussion was not too detailed but only the basic ideas. (I must have revised it :( ). Then they asked why AVL tree over a simple BST? Why BST better than sorted array? Why sorted array better than sorted linked list. Finally they offered me a wonderful Coffee :)
I was happy after the interview despite making mistakes.


IISC Interview Experience


I was enjoying the beauty of IISC Campus and so reached the department just 5 minutes before the written test. I hurriedly filled up the forms and went to write the exam.
Written Test: 10 Questions, 30 Minutes. Most candidates were called for the interview.
Interview: [This description is more verbose than the IMSC since I noted down my experiences and feelings after the interview. The sandwich part is bit exagerated!] Much more challenging than IMSC interview. I made more mistakes than the IMSC interview. I was the 3rd person to be interviewed in morning session. Interview lasted for about 45 minutes or more. 9-10 interviewers were there. Despite getting IMSC I was tensed once again. First they read out my details and the background subjects which I had chosen (Discrete Maths, DS and algo). They asked me which area of Discrete maths I was comfortable with. I did not reply fearing they might ask too difficult question in that topic. I requested them to ask any question and said that I will try to solve them. Now the shock comes! 


['I' stands for a general interviewer.]
I: Given a d-regular graph how many colors are needed to color it.
Me: (I was almost sure I will fail, but yet decided to give it a try). Now since every vertex is adjacent to d other vertices at least d+1 colours are needed. 
I: Can you come up with a upper bound on number of colors as a function of n,d where n is number of vertices?
Me: Trying to come up with a solution. Made so many mistakes. Finally to play safe I said: If there are n vertices, then for a d-regular graph atleast d+1 colors and atmost n colors will be needed (Wow!!)
I: (Some of them laughed I think) Can you come up with a better upper bound?
Me: I will try to draw some d-regular graphs and see. 
I: Try with n = 3 and d = 5. (Please see the trick here)
Me: Trying to do that. Kept on drawing so many graphs. Finally I said I will try for n = 4
I: No, try for n = 3 with the graph you have just drawn.
Me: Trying again. Finally realized what I was doing. Sum of degrees of this graph is 3*5 = 15 which is odd. Sum of degrees must be even. So this graph is not possible.
I: You said that you need at least d+1 colors. d+1 is also the upper bound. How did you come up with that? Can you prove it? (This made things easier for me since they already said the upper bound is d+1)
Me: Thinking for a long time. I was telling them whatever I was thinking. Made mistakes again. So a d-regular graph will have atleast d+1 vertices. Take any vertex v, color it with c1. Color all it's d adjacent vertices with color c2,c3,...,cd+1. Then make a set for each color. Put vertices having color ci in set i. Now take any vertex which is not colored yet. It will be adjacent to exactly d-vertices. Which means there is atleast one set j to which it will not have any adjacent vertex. So we can reuse the color cj. So d+1 colors are sufficient.
I: OK, what can you say about any two vertex in the same set?
Me: They will not be adjacent.
I: In other words? 
Me: They will be completely disconnected.
I: Yes they will form a independent set. Can you say anything about any two vertex which are in different sets?
Me: (Made a huge blunder) Each vertex in a set i will be connected to all vertices in set j.
I: One of the interviewers drew a 1-regular bipartite graph on the board.
Me: (Realized my mistake)Oh I was wrong!!
I: Can you now say the modified statement?
Me: For any two sets i and j there will be at least one vertex in set i which is connected to one vertex in set j
I: Why??
Me: Because if they were not connected then we could use the same color to color the vertices in both sets and this means we need less than d+1 colors.
I: Ok Now what can you say about a 2-colorable graph?
Me: It is a bipartite graph
I: Right, can you come up with an algorithm to find if a given graph is 2-colorable or not?
Me: (In my mind: Ohh my god!!) Thinking...took a lot of time. Take 2 empty sets. Start with a vertex. Put it in set 1. Put all vertices adjacent to set 2. Then take any vertex from set 1. At this point I started struggling. They asked me some questions. I got confused and I doubted my approach. Then I came up with a new approach. One of the interviewer gave me a graph where my new approach fails. Then I resumed the original strategy. Start with a vertex. Put it in set 1. Put its neighbors in set 2. Now pick a random unprocessed vertex from set 2. If any of its neighbors is already in set 2 then graph is not bipartite. Otherwise put those adjacent vertices which are not in set 1 into set 1. (However I did not state this as clearly as I have written it. )
I: Ok, Can you prove that this algorithm is correct? 
Me: Struggled but could not come up with the proof!
I: Tried to help me. Offered me Sandwich and asked me to relax.
I: Alright you can solve this problem Offline. Thank you! We are done. You can have the sandwich.
Me: (About to take the sandwich) 
I: Ok we will just ask a question on ds. Do you know about arrays?
Me: Yes 
I: How will you find the intersection of two sorted arrays.
Me: May be we should use merge procedure of merge sort. Explained how to find common element (but not so clearly).
I: What will be the cost?
Me: Explained that. Linear time and Linear space.
I: What if we don't want the extra space?
Me: We can use binary search. for each element in Array A search it in B.
I: How much time will it take?
Me: mlogn. m - size of smaller array, n - size of larger array
I: What if we want to use constant space but also want linear time?
Me: (Thinking)
I: (Gave a hint) Think about the merge technique you first said
Me: (Got the idea)Yes we really do not need extra space. We just need two pointers into the array.
I: can you state what action must be performed if i is pointing to A[i] and j is pointing to B[j]?
Me: If A[i] == B[j] then it is a common element otherwise move the pointer pointing to the smaller element forward.
I: Thank you. 
Me: Left without having the sandwich
Overall it was a wonderful feeling of being able to approach these problems, but I wasn't sure of getting selected since I made too many mistakes and was taking too long to think. I am happy that I got this year itself :)

30

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
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I studied in first 6 month of preparation  like crazy. I used to wake up at 5.00 AM , I used to start study in early 6.00 after getting ready and used to study till 11.00 PM. I used to seat for hours straight on computer reading books, watching video lectures, practicing questions etc.  I was gone crazy for GATE. I was so determined, I could study for hours straight and was able to concentrate even at 10 PM even after preparing from 6-10PM. was it right way to go ? Guess ?

 

NO, it is worst way to prepare for any exam. Please do not do something like this .

Now you would ask, why I’m saying please do not prepare with this passion ? because if you prepare like this it’ll hurt your health badly. I used to sit for long hours before and due to that my back started paining badly. Back pain was so severe that I could not even sit at one place without feeling the pain. Then I went to doctor and confirmed that my back pain was just due to wrong seating posture and nothing serious has happened. At the same time I was told do not sit in one place in same position for hours like this. This happened about 3 month before exam, if it had happened week before exam, I might have to forget everything. I had to spend one week taking rest before resuming studies.

So from there onward I started taking breaks in study , I started using Pomodoro technique and stopped non stop preparation. I used to study for 25 minutes & then took 10 minutes break. Out of those 10 minutes I used to spend 8 minutes in walking on terrace in sunshine for healthy vitamin D (Which I lacked due to 6 months over-study) and also started to workout every morning.

Now I’m fully recovered, some back pain is there, but according to Doctor it might take few more months to stop back pain completely. I’ve been told to do more physical activity and stop seating on Computer for hours without breaks.

So morale of the story –> Passion, Determination everything is good as long as it is not hurting you. If you are dead tomorrow your GATE rank is not going to benefit you in any way. So take care of your body, take breaks every 25 minutes unless you are giving mocks.

Check first 2 minutes of following videos ->

Video Regarding Moha 1 -> Here Krishna tells one should know where to stop and control the Moha (Desire) . Even though Moha of doing more study is good thing for exam, do not overdo it , stop after period of 25 minutes and take break. Watch Video.

Video about one should know where to stop -> In this video Krishna talks about we should know where to stop , it is not always necessary to keep going. Self restraint is also very important for life.In our case we should stop after studying for 25 minutes and take break of 10 minutes before restarting. Watch video.

Video about Patience => In this video Krishna talks about Importance of Patience (Sanyam) for success. For success patience is very important quality. For long term success one should be able to stop study after time and take break, and have patience to do that. Watch video.

Taken from ->https://akashkanasegate2016.wordpress.com/2016/03/27/do-not-overstudy/

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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.

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My name is Aakash Bhardwaj, and this blog is about my life in the last three years. I was non-serious at the time of JEE prepration, and I assumed IITs were the same as other colleges, so I didn't prepare for JEE much. I was admitted to a tier 3 college, and within one year of college, I realized the value of IITs. During 2nd year, I started wondering about various options, which was when I came to know about GATE. In 3rd year, precisely the 6th semester, I started preparing for GATE 2021 and enrolled in the Ravidrababu Ravula sir's course. Ravi sir taught very well, and there was a considerable difference between what I learned in college and what sir taught. Everything was going well, and I was pulling 7-8 hrs per day and managing my college altogether.

 In GATE 2021, the pattern changed, and there were two examination shifts. IITB also introduced multiple select questions. Due to COVID, semester exams that were supposed to get over in the Last week of December got postponed and went till the first week of Feb. Practical exams clashed with GATE. The GATE exam was on 14 Feb, and one day before the exam, I was in college for practical exams. I had very high expectations on exam day, but I had hardly read anything in the last 30 days. My exam slot was 2-5 pm, I went for the exam, and I almost gave up within an hour and started guessing the answers instead of solving the questions. Ultimately, I got 35 marks.  

So I had two options: to go for another attempt or join TCS. I decided on another shot. Firstly, I analyzed my mistakes in GATE2021. Which were

  • Solved very few PYQs
  • Very less practice.
  • Poor in-depth knowledge of subjects like TOC, DM, COA, and DBMS

 

So, just after GATE 2021, I started preparation and had access to MadeEasy Prime lectures. I took subject by subject, made thorough revisions, and referred MadeEasy classes for weekly topics. In this way, I have completed DS, Algo, CD, COA, DLD, CN, and OS by May end. In June, I enrolled in the Gateoverflow and MadeEasy test series and started attempting tests(Topic-wise and subject-wise tests) on every alternative day. I analyzed every test properly. In parallel, I started learning discrete maths from Satish Yadav sir and TOC from Deepak Poonia sir(GOCLASSESS was just launched then). I have completed all subjects till September, including solving PYQs twice.

In October, I started giving full-length test series. I have attempted almost 30+ full-length tests from various test series on alternative days. In Made Easy test series, my lowest marks were 58, and my highest was 82 (I got 68+ in most tests). In the Gateoverflow test series, I attempted three full-length tests with scores of 56,61, and 59. In the ACE test series, I got 70+ on most of the Attempted tests.

But, 20 days before the exam, I got covid positive, suffered from extreme symptoms, and took almost 7-8 days to recover partially and get back to studies. And this was when I got the news that my grandfather had expired. Throughout the lockdown, I used to study in the room next to my grandfather's room. It seemed that GOD was against me, and I was utterly lost. And guess what? I failed in GATE again!!.

I planned everything, completed the syllabus on time, solved every PYQ, attempted the Test series with proper analysis, solved foreign university assignments, and still got a rank of 3500. GATE 2022 was bigger than a failure for me. I was depressed and stressed. Thanks to Satish sir and my parents for helping me at this time. My failure portfolio didn't stop here.

After this, I attempted PGEE. I was on the waiting list but didn't secure a seat. In BARC, I got 130, and the cutoff was 134; hence, I was not shortlisted. In CPCL, I got 80/120. There was only one seat for UR, and I am from the General category, so I again failed(CPCL did not disclose the cutoff). Somehow, I started revision and attempted the HPCL exam after one month. I got 126 marks, and the UR cutoff was 130. I was very close to the threshold, but I still failed.

In the meantime, I got job offers from TCS, INFOSYS and IOPEX, but the salary was too low. I also got an MTech admission offer at IIIT Delhi (non-gate) and BITS Pilani(Goa campus). NPCI(national payments corporation of India) also offered me a job opportunity. IITs and PSUs were my dreams, and I gave my 100% to achieve my goal. It was difficult for me to satisfy at a bare minimum. 

I am not motivated to go for another attempt at GATE, and it is still being determined when ISRO will hire through the ICRB exam or when NIELIT will recruit. Considering everything, I decided to go to Australia for higher studies. I got admission to CDU, Darwin(Australia), and this is probably my last week in India. 

 

So yes, this was my hustle and my gate journey. People say, "Luck favors those who work hard," but I doubt it!!

 

I would especially like to thank Deepak sir for the unique content for TOC and brilliant answers on Gateoverflow. Thanks to Satish sir for teaching me and helping me in tough times. My parents supported me throughout the journey. I remember when my mom used to watch Ranayan on muted audio because I was studying then, so thanks for the blessings and constant support they have been for me. A special thanks to Kirti Soni and Himanshu Kumar for solving my irritating doubts.

 

34
GATE 2017.. :-

Apptitude section :-  I think its a gud mixture of easy n tricky questions .

Technical Section :- Few Question are easy n few are really tough but what i found is options were to complex to choose as all are really close but in all paper was quite length personally my speed is low bcoz confuse while attempting the options but in all if more time i will able to attempt more question.

PS:- GATE is just an exam of gud presence of mind and be tensed free while attempting the question, i found gate overflow test is quite harder than actual gate but still i m nervous while attempting the questions as GATE word itself make the people scary, every one did good prepartion but it just the pressure that make the differnce.

VOTE OF THANKS :- I just want to thank each n everyone who have contribute to gateoverflow as you all do commendable job its not just a site for a gate aspirants it is everthing i never found such think that make learning so easy n enjoying.... your answers n advice , comments helped me alot. for me its everthing . ARJUN sir n bikram thanks so much for your help n guidence you both were awesum .

I dont know i get a good rank or not but learning is my passion n i am person who is happy with learning new things n helping others n yeah during my preparation i learned alot n with the help of you all... i am happy after my exam as i know things its not like i have mug up the things so just forget  no its ....which is bcoz of gate overflow and you all... EVERYONE here is a hero for me really a big cheers to all of you....

So i just want to continue my gateoverflow journey always bcoz m being crazy about it

Lasty we can discuss here about set 2 and  want to know after gate   what to do next  ?? as want mtech from a good college so kindly share your views and which is better possibilty to explore next ...
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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]

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GATE-18 : In 2018 my father told me to appear for GATE exam as it is helpful in many Govt. jobs so I appeared. I got 14 marks(didn’t qualify).

 

GATE-19 preparation: In June 2018 I completed my UG(CSE) from 3-tier university. I was placed in a SBC(service based company) and most probably they would give joining letter in Nov so I thought of preparing for GATE as I had lot of free time. I started preparing from youtube videos but within a month I got joining letter from my company and I joined. With job I completed 3-4 subjects and appeared for GATE-19. I got 29.33 marks(didn’t qualify).

 

GATE-20 preparation : This time I was serious about GATE. Continued my preparation from April with youtube videos(Biggest blunder which I did but realized very late). I didn’t study from books or NPTEL lectures because it was too boring for me. In November I took 3 months leave so that I could focus only on GATE. I went back to my home for preparation. When I started revision then I realized that it is tough for me to recall the concepts as I didn’t do any revision once I completed the subjects. Somehow I managed it and appeared for GATE-20. I was able to solve aptitude and most of the 1 marks question. But the real terror started with 2 marks questions and I panicked. When paper ended I knew I screwed it but I learned few important lessons:

  1. Follow standard books or NPTEL lectures not some random youtube videos.
  2. Revision is must and you must practice a lot.
  3. If you are doing self study then try to have a group of friends who are seriously preparing for GATE because it is very easy to get distracted and get demotivated.

 

I got 46 marks(rank : 2732) in GATE-20.

 

GATE-21 preparation: I went back to my company and resigned after 2 months. This time I didn’t want to take any risk so I thought of joining ME coaching so that I will not get distracted from my goal and I can push myself. But due to COVID there was no offline coaching. Since I already resigned from my job and there was no offline coaching I had only one option that is self-study. This time I tried to clear my doubts by referring standard books and practiced a lot. But my biggest enemy was distraction and it used to take 2-3 days to get back to my study routine. My planning was to complete the syllabus by Oct but it went till mid Dec. By 10 Jan(2021) I completed my subject wise tests. Then I started giving Full length tests(ME,ACE,RBR). But in none of them I could get the feel of GATE exam. So I solved all the GATE PYQs from 2011-2020 as Test series from GO. I noted all the mistakes and tough questions separately and whenever I revised a subject I used to go through it. This helped me to avoid silly mistakes and my marks improved. I was ready with technical subjects but didn’t practice aptitude as time was less(and procrastination).On my exam day I had only one goal “solve all the solvable questions without any silly mistakes” .

Mine was set 1.

180 min left: exam starts, started with aptitude section (couldn’t solve two 2 marks question)

160 min left: starts technical section

20 min left: 1st round of technical section was done, now tried to solve unsolved  questions in technical section(preferred 2 marks questions first)

5 min left: went to aptitude to solve those two questions

2 min left: couldn’t solve it and now I realized I should have practiced aptitude also.

1 min left: went to technical section and did guesswork in unsolved NAT and MSQ.

I got 65.33 marks(Normalized marks:63.76),  Rank:179 Gate Score: 807

37
This day one year back I joined this nice platform..So I think it is just to reiterate back to the one year past..At that time I did not know much about the gateoverflow as I did not use it earlier..Just knew about the rank predictor : Thanks to @Pragy sir for this beneficial thing.. So I made this account one year back..And since then I have been learning a lot from the questions and discussions following the questions..

In fact according to me , it is one of the best platforms for GATE preparation..It contains not only the previous year questions' solutions but a lot of healthy discussions in the comment section of most of the questions..Besides one can also discuss the standard questions and concepts here..@Arjun sir and @Bikram sir in particular has been helpful a lot..

At this juncture , I also try my best to help as well..But following what happened in the GATE this year , I was upset that time..But at the same time I feel happy for those who have achieved good and acknowledge my help in some form or the other..I have learnt a lot from a few people in particular.. @Kishalay Da ,@Debashish Da , @Anusha Motamarri , @vijaycs , @srestha , @mcjoshi ,@Prashant to mention a few (Sorry if I have forgotten any) ..

In the end , I will suggest all gate aspirants to use gateoverflow nicely..It would be very beneficial..Thank you all..Myself also hoping to do something good in upcoming year..

LONG LIVE GATEOVERFLOW..:)
38

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.

39

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!! 

40

I joined a government engineering of GGSIP University Delhi in 2012, it was GB Pant Govt Engineering College. It barely fit into a definition of college. Unnaturally small campus, no permanent faculty, no ECA and not much alumni base. I got an opportunity to get Power engineering at some slightly better college but then I decided not to dwell into unchartered territory just because of money. First year went by in a blink with all those irrelevant subjects (chemistry, physics and EVS). One thing I regret about my college life is not aiming for better marks when I could easily get them.

During second and third year, I was exploring .NET technologies for career in development and also trying my hand at competitive programming (CPr), which was far more interesting than development but more difficult. The drawback* of CPr was, your market value isn't much if you aren't among the top 400-500 (unlike development). At the start of fourth year, I came back from ACM ICPC regionals Amritapuri after embarassing myself and relied on campus placements. During my internship, I saw* the jugaadu development trend in service-based firms of India so I was adamant for a package based company only. However I attended every company's recruitment drive but didn't got one, not even Infosys.

I decided to list down the possible options I had*, (assuming workload/stress is inevitable in every field)

  1. MBA: Pros
    • Hefty salary (if done from teir-1,2 institute)
    • Not much technical skills required
      Cons
    • Had to deal with people from non-technical background.
    • Had to study (many) trivial things in curriculum and my previous curriculum will become useless.
      Pass
  2. Govt Exams like SSC or Civils: Most of the aspirants are not even aware of the job profile, they go after just because of pay and perks. I looked up their work, found it boring, pass.
  3. Apply in startups:  too much work for too less salary, but still I kept this option open.
  4. MS outside India: my CGPA and profile was not even close to a good profile, I saw no point in studying in a sub-standard university of some other country on huge expenses and even after that it all depends on my hard work.

My goal of life is to create something new, something useful with the knowledge I posses. I know its quite vague but it is what it is. I never liked the reporting structure and lack of independence in IT jobs. I zeroed down to do MTech then PhD from a reputed college in India and apply for lectureship. I prefer* my own research work + mentoring kids (in long term) over anything. Its not that I come from a filthy rich family and I don't want money, its just... I have seen* (many) people compromising in life to earn some more money and then they end up... not really satisfied with life. Basically if I am* able to educate my 2-3 kids, support my parents and tolerate my wife, then I am earning enough.

In my casual attempt of GATE 2016, I got AIR ~2.9k and GS 544. That year I gave other exams as well but qualified only for the interview at JNU. Their written was relatively easy and mostly (gate level) maths based, I already decided to drop a year and prepare again. So I gave the written with a relax mind. I still remember my center was opp Richie Rich restaurant.

Interview experience: there was this panel of 8-9 teachers, my interview was just before lunch so I knew they'll not give much of a thought if I screw up.

  1. They asked me to introduce myself (yes in some technical interviews they ask that, prepare a short intro and not just reading out your resume).
  2. They asked me about the subjects I studied in my last semester (I was totally unprepared for this).
  3. I told them. One of the teacher heard "Software Testing" and I thought shit! I prepared 10-11 subjects of GATE and they had to ask me about this.
  4. She started asking questions
    • What is COCOMO model used for? (Forgot)
    • How will you calculate Du-Dc paths? (No idea) At least tell me their full form (couldn't recall)
    • What is the difference between verification and validation? (partially answered)
    • Why are you so weak in software engineering? (couldn't tell her that it is full of theory, so kept mum)
  5. Other faculty intervened and asked my strong subjects. I said DS, Algo, TOC. And the questions followed:
    • Do you know traveling salesman problem, what is its time complexity? (Exponential sir, it is in O(n!) I think)
    • So how can you say it is exponential when you are saying it is O(n!)? (I was blank)
    • Do you know the relation between them? (Blank) Have you ever heard of Stirling function? (No sir)
    • Acha tell me TSP problem is what? P, NP, NP complete, NP hard? (I said NP complete, but it is not)
    • About TOC... what is the difference between a grammar and an automata? (I said both are used to generate a language, but the right answer is, only grammar generates a language whereas automata accepts or rejects strings)

I got the admission and classes began in August. I was taking coaching from gateforum saket at that time. Want to know the coaching experience? Click here. An year later, in 2017, I gave GATE again but panicked in the last moments. Got AIR 1.2k and GS 644. I received offer letter from ISM for CSE in 2nd round and NIT Silchar in ccmt. Called for the interviews at:

  1. IIT Pallakkad MS:
    • Didn't go. Their CSE dept had only 3 lecturers and that too assistant proffs.
  2. IIT Ropar MS and MTech:
    • Couldn't go because of end sems at JNU.
  3. IIT Gandhinagar MTech:
    • First there was written round (easy) and then a programming round (moderate). 30-35 students went ahead for the interview out of 150 I think.
    • I selected the panel for Algorithms (there was System panel and Ai panel).
    • What'll be the effect on the shortest route if I add a constant to every edge weight? (Knew it)
    • How does BFS work? Where it is more useful than DFS? (knew it)
    • How do you find the articulation point in a graph using BFS? (fumbled)
    • Not selected.
  4. IIT Mandi MS:
    • Written was easy and then 20-25 students shortlisted from 30 I think.
    • They asked me my research preference. (I said currently I am open to all)
    • Write pseudo code to multiply two 3x3 matrices and what'll be its complexity? (I gave non-optimal pseudo code and said it'll be of order O(n3) but the correct answer was O(1) )
    • What is a bipartite graph? (Knew it) How'll you detect if a given graph is bipartite or not? (After some hints from them, I said using chromatic number 2)
    • How can one use DFS to accomplish that? (told them) Do you think 2 disconnected bipartite graph can also be considered as a big partite graph? (I said no, answer was yes)
    • There is this stream of 0s followed by 1s, you have to find the transition of 0 to 1 in less than O(n) time. (told them to use a modified binary search, they weren't satisfied)
    • Result:  waiting list number 6 and seats were 4.
  5. NIT Trichy MS:
    • There was lack of information. Will there be interview or not? Timing on call letter was 10:30 but on the schedule it was 3:30. Out of called 30 students, 6-7 students (including me) reached NITT before time.
    • They checked our documents in the morning only and told us there'll be an interview. Thank god I came before time.
    • Panel consisted of all their proffs. They asked me introduce myself.
    • What was your Btech project? (an encryption algorithm which worked on rubiks cube and steganography)
    • What is public key cryptography? (told them)
    • How is it different that symmetric key cryptography?
    • If symmetric key cryptography is faster then why do we use asymmetric ones? (told them, bcoz then key exchange becomes a problem)
    • What are digital signatures? (told them)
    • Result: accepted (among 2 other guys)

I could have gotten IIT Patna or IIITD but I was foolish to not apply. Trichy was the last interview I had. After I got acceptance from there and after a lot of brainstorming. I decided to stay in JNU only and complete my 1yr of MTech. Someone asked on facebook "then y did u even give gate and attended interviews", I told him "Gave gate for IISc and old IITs yaar and Gave interviews taaki pehle admission confirm to ho, fir sochta Jana hai ki nahi". I was scoring relatively well in mocks, I could have gotten mid level IITs or RA at old IITs with those mock scores. But I panicked on the judgment day when I saw an entire row of red buttons. I was determined to get into a tier-1 college (and I am) but I am not stubborn. I'll give my 27 % towards my grades and dissertation in JNU in order to see myself pursuing a PhD from a better college, and that is my plan. Want to know how is JNU? Click here

Even though I didn't get what I imagined but in future if I ever end up at the top of my field, a huge contribution in that will be of this GO community. Thank you all the seniors for putting sense into me when I was running haywire. 

Suggestion to my juniors:

  1. * means, those statements are my personal opinion and my personal stand. Do not copy them or be influenced with them.
  2. Grades also matters! I was told in my sophomore year and junior year that companies don't give a shit about grades/marks. But no-one told me there are options other than job after graduation, like post-graduation. And there, grades matter a lot. Maintain at least 8.0/10
  3. Software engineering also matters :p
  4. If you are preparing for GATE and ever feel distracted. Think of your dream college and say its name 4 times. I used to chant "IIT Bombay". It'll help you to concentrate.
  5. Give every exam! Be it BITS or ISI or JNU or any other. It is the fault of college if they are not preparing a wait list.
  6. Do not ask questions like "which college should I join","college A vs college B, which is better". Get your priorities straight, do your own research (if u don't know then ask how to do research) and decide for yourself.
    100 minds will give you 100 opinions whereas only 1 opinion matters, your own.