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21

GATE is in two days. I would advise you to take enough rest and keep the mind healthy. If you are worried about forgetting stuffs -- nothing to worry; hardly any question in GATE will require that. While writing GATE never gets tensed. I'm not wishing anyone to get "easy" questions because that does not mean a good rank for you. The only thing you should worry is to

  1. Do NOT make careless mistakes - you can see the difference "NOT" makes here :)
  2. Read every question with same enthusiasm -- even if some are really tough keep your cool thinking that most others are going to find them even tougher
  3. Do not count marks; doing it after exam will give you some additional marks
  4. Do not try to do minimum 'X' questions -- if the exam is tough those who do not attempt tough questions end up getting better ranks; so attempt each question as per merit
  5. Some questions might be lengthy but solution might be simple. Reading with full concentration might help you in decoding them. But if it is not possible; never waste too much time
  6. Never try to pattern match the questions with those you have done in mock tests because most times there will be some change. So, read every word carefully; see all given options even if you are sure of the first one
  7. For the 3 hours keep your dreams and tensions aside. Just take one question at a time and do. If you do not make any mistakes you surely won't have any regrets in the end.

All the best :)

 

Arjun posted in Preparation Advice Feb 2, 2018
by Arjun
4,516 views
22

GATE is one exam where your result is not entirely proportional to the "no. of hours you put in". Some of you might be in final years and giving GATE with hardly any preparation. But based on previous year stats I can say that a good percentage of top 200 will be people like you especially if you are from a "non spoon-fed" college. Anyway for this blog post I'm only considering those who have prepared well and now wondering "what to do".

I have been quite vocal against test series. This is mainly due to the really bad or at least useless questions in many of them. But if you have less experience in solving technical questions you should definitely give at least 5 full length tests -- even same previous year papers are fine if you have not seen a good number of those solutions. The main points to note here are

  1. Solving all questions you know in 3 hours
  2. Determining how to optimize time -- if some questions are really time consuming you should skip it if this can save you time for other easier ones.
  3. Avoiding careless mistakes -- in actual GATE you might lose some marks like this but your aim must be to restrict it to less than 5.
  4. After an exam think how you could have got 10 marks extra -- which all topics lost you marks, how to avoid careless mistakes etc.

Now, other than the tests I would recommend you to spend more time thinking and less time on standard resources (strict no to non-standard ones :P). For each subject, each topic and each sub-topic think what all are the important points -- not down if required. Think what type of questions can come from those. You can use GATE syllabus for help here and I assume you have gone through most previous year papers. You should spend less time on books now -- because you cannot carry books to exam hall.

Once you do the above for most/all the topics you will surely get confidence to do well in GATE. So far I have been telling to score 90+, 80+, 70+ etc. but in actual GATE your only focus must be to get every question "you know" as correct. Do not count the marks and get tensed. Instead if you find an unknown questions be happy that you saved time and this can be used for other questions. Remember that in GATE there will be many new questions and some of them will be rather easy if you read them properly.

Luck is a good guy - but it cannot save you a lot. Just with luck one cannot get a better batting average than Sachin Tendulkar. Similarly, just with luck one cannot beat a well prepared person in GATE. So far in the last 4 years I have hardly seen any good guy/girl miss out on a top rank. Some of them who got a high 3 figure rank due to bad luck/tension then went on to do well in Interviews and got to good IITs. So, there is nothing to get tensed for you. If you have prepared well and in the right way, you will definitely do well in GATE. Just focusing on these small points can make sure that you do not miss out on vital marks. Good luck!!!

Arjun posted in Preparation Advice Jan 24, 2018
by Arjun
4,943 views
23

#10_important_suggestions.(as per our experience).
Note- Ignore if u already have some better plan.

1. Make sure that before writing GATE exam, u already hold 
the experience of atleast 5-10 full length paper in the similar 
environment and also at the same timing slot 09.00 -12.00.
2. Daily revision of short notes is obligatory .
3. Same for previous year's paper.
4. Some theoretical concepts are there in the syllabus to mug 
up. So u must do it . 
5. Take care of ur foods during these days.
6. 6-7 hrs of sleep is very necessary for ur good health and 
good mind.
7. These days, u can avoid all social connections except 
gatecse family .
8. while attempting paper, Dont read questions in hurry.Stay 
calm, read questions carefully atleast for twice and if not 
understood then use ur pen/pencil to note down 
things(numerical value, conditions ,variable etc. ).
9. Spending much time on a single question is stupidity(I 
should not use this word but it is).Better mark those 
questions and try at last.
10. Think about the 3 hrs and U are in IIT.(deep line)

Good luck 
All the best, guys n girls 
*Ignore grammatical mistakes,I m working on it.

Rajesh Raj posted in Preparation Advice Jan 15, 2018 recategorized Jan 15, 2018 by Rajesh Raj
3,871 views
24

Hello friends!!

It is October already. So, many of you might have started feeling the heat of GATE 2018, especially with the volume of course still left to cover with the added pressure of projects or workload at job. A very alluring option to cope up with this issue is to start byhearting standard results (or formula) and not giving attention to how they came (usually, the mathematics part), as it takes very less time to do so, covers the syllabus faster and most importantly gives us the feeling of being fully-prepared (illusion). We have lot of such standard results in:

  • trees (binary, AVL, m-ary, B tree and B+ tree) and graphs,
  • computer networks as a whole,
  • automata designing (no. of states),
  • computer architecture (cache, memory management, disc management and file management),
  • digital electronics (combinational and sequential circuits),
  • probability and permutations and combinations.

But, is it a wise way to do so? NO, and I will tell you why?

  • The fact that GATE examination in CS/IT dates back to 1980s itself nullifies the probability of a direct standard result based question compared to subjects in which GATE has been started recently. Even if such questions comes, 90% of the aspirants will score +1/+2 (full), which means you may have got +1/+2 on paper, but technically you are still at 0 competitively.
  • This necessitates the need of questions to be a little deviated from the ideal cases for which those standard results hold which happens in GATE a lot as the question setters already know what kind of loopholes one makes in preparation every-time. Now, the standard results won’t work. But, yes if you learnt the way those results were derived, you can derive the answer for this deviated/ modified/ tweaked case as well. Remember, GATE scrutinizes one’s merit via his/her understanding of the subject, unlike other exams like ISRO, BARC or any other PSUs like BEL, CIL or SBI that tries to gauge one's merit through command over formula based questions (majorly) in their written examination.
  • Not only this, this will help you during interviews and written examinations in IITs/ IISc as well, where they very often ask to prove or derive a very commonly known result or some modification of it.
  • For example, derive the maximum number of nodes in a m-ary tree of height (h) (root is at height 1). A very handy way of solving this question in an objective type exam would be to take m=2,3,4 and h=5(say) and safely conclude that it will be m^h. But such an approach will fetch you no good repo in an interview or written tests in IITs/ IISc. But, have one learnt during preparation that for a binary tree (2-ary), the formula 2^h comes from a GP of 1,2,4,….,2^(h-1), he/she could easily proceed in the way to get the desired result. Note that, the former was verification while the latter is the proof/ derivation, the terms which are fundamentally different in mathematical premise.

Especially the people, who are taking any coaching as THE BIBLE, have to pay attention to it as the course completion in coaching institutes revolves majorly around giving a brief introduction to the baics and then providing with all set of standard results for advanced concepts, a term called as over-fitting in Machine Learning. Coaching is supposed to be a catalyst and is not a substitute to self-study.

Finally, I would like to address another elephant in the room, which is lack of acceptance. At any point of time if your answer goes wrong, instead of trying to prove it right by bringing a bunch of friends to an online discussion to support you or point others to show what is wrong with your solution with an intention of non-acceptance, realize this for your own good that it is better that your mistake got rectified at this stage and you will not suffer on the exam day. Instead of arguing un-necessarily, focus on LEARNING, which is central to the process of preparation. A problem may have n ways of solving it out of which only a few are correct. So, a complexity analysis of wrong ways will be of O(n) while the analysis of the correct ones will be O(1). This decision to opt for what is efficient as well as beneficial rests with you. 

PS: Life is not long enough to learn by committing every mistake on your own. Sometimes, we must optimize our learning algorithm so as to learn from mistakes of others too. 

ALL THE BEST !!

HAPPY LEARNING !!

prateekkmr60 posted in Preparation Experience Oct 8, 2017 edited Oct 8, 2017 by prateekkmr60
5,771 views
25

Hello friends !! Good morning !!

Today I am going to share my experiences about the types of mistakes which I committed and their possible solutions in context of GATE 2016 and GATE 2017 wherever I can cite examples which I attempted and secured 332 rank and 613 rank respectively [ a very rare occurence I think..:) bcoz I have seen numerous examples whose rank in prev attempt is around 2000 and then around 100 or even better in next attempt ]  due to some  mistakes..I had many hopes of excelling this year but unfortunately the D-day did not work for me..So let me tell about the potential mistakes that may be committed during exam..

Mistake type 1 :

The first mistake that I am referring is related to psychological state of a student during examination..Let we have a scenario in which a student consistently does well in tests that he/she gave in the different test series..Now it is possible that expectation factor comes into picture for a student in the exam that he/she need to attempt around 60 questions at any cost..This should not happen as it will create unnecessary pressure and may be responsible for commitment of many mistakes as the paper may be difficult and hence the questions need to be attempted accordingly as is the case of set 1 paper this time..One has to overcome the panic that may be possible in the initial minutes of attempting the paper ..In short one should have expectation but not during paper solving,,The questions should be solved on the basis of difficulty..Identification of difficulty level of a question is important..

Mistake type 2:

Misreading the question : Sometimes due to lack of concentration , what we do we misinterpret the question.The gate paper setters are very intelligent and they intentionally give such options such that the option corrresponding to misinterpretation will be there.As a result what happens we get wrong there.I used to do a lot of mistakes like that.

As an example , in a question it may say that "identify a false statement" .We do not read the entire question and understand that we have to pick the correct one thus leading to wrong result.

Mistake type 3 :

Having the default mindset regarding a question : Sometimes what happens that we have a default mindset regarding a concept or a fact being used in the question.This default or trivial  mindset often leads to error.As an example , in DBMS in normalisation , we may be asked weakest normal form of a table given the FDs of a relation.What is generally in our mind is that we have to choose the strongest i.e. the most appropriate and highest normal form which the FD set satisfies.But in question we are asked about the weakest so people may commit mistakes here.In fact this question came this year in gate,the link being:

http://gateoverflow.in/39646/gate-2016-1-23

Similarly we know about Dining Philosopher's Problem solution which is deadlock free and satisfies the criteria for proper synchronisation construct.But in exam just for name's sake it may be used but code used may suffer from problem .So we have to examine the code properly.

 

Mistake type 4:

Like question solved earlier : 

When we have similar or exact question which have solved earlier somewhere , beware of this.U have to think it as a new question and solve it properly.Some people gets overjoyed and hence commit mistakes.I did the same type of mistake on finding no of topological sort this year,

In all of the above scenarios , we should do the following :

a) We should read the whole question properly at least once , then ask to oneself what facts are given.Jot them in a piece of paper especially for numerical type questions.Else what happens is repeatedly we have to switch between paper and screen and hence time is also wasted and also one is not able to concentrate on the question.So all the important data should be mentioned like to calculate  throughput in CN we have to note down distance between stations , data size etc.

b) Then we should solve the question systematically following procedure in a proper way

c) Following answering we should verify and recheck it at least once is it the thing that is asked for.

d) Option elimination also plays an important role in some cases.Make the best use of that as it saves time.

 

Now coming to the ambiguous issue :

First of all there are 2 types of questions :

a) Conceptual and theoretical :

For this clear hold on subject is required so that u can decide whether the question is ambiguous or not within a short span of time.

b) Numerical :

Here actually there is hardly anything we can do.We have to solve after all.If after solving we find that no option is matching or more than 2 options are correct.Then we cannot do anything.Actually it rarely happens in gate , but if at all it happens , then normally marks are given to all for that.So no need to worry about that.

Sometimes from the question solving point of view setting counter example also helps.For example in problems where are we are given some statements about MST or Graph Traversals etc.There if we are able to set counter examples , it is very helpful.

 

Hope the points mentioned by me will prove to be helpful for the GATE 2018 aspirants.Thank you..

Habibkhan posted in Others Aug 24, 2017 retagged Sep 9, 2017 by Habibkhan
6,155 views
26

Thank you Sachin Mittal for making this wonderful video on how to make use of all GATE Overflow features. The below two videos describes the features of GO site and also GO PDF. 

www.youtube.com/embed/o9fMhTVVYto

www.youtube.com/embed/ANBH8jAEH1c

 

Arjun posted in From GO Admins Jun 1, 2017 edited May 2, 2022 by Arjun
by Arjun
8,018 views
27

Thanks Havan Somaiya @Hvncool for suggesting this. I request all seniors to please fill this form. Also, do suggest if I missed any relevant point.

Source

Responses

 

Arjun posted in Others May 19, 2017 edited May 20, 2017 by Arjun
by Arjun
5,839 views
28

Someone showed me CCMT brochure this time. It seemed unnecessarily complex but due to lack of coordination from non participating Institutes this might be the best they could do. Anyway for CSE, I'll try to demystify many things.

First, this is what a typical candidate must do:

  1. Fill the choices in the order they prefer. If you do not have a preference going by last year filling is not so bad - Last year stats
  2. Until you are allotted a place, you need not do anything
  3. If you are allotted never take "Freezing" option unless you are 100% sure you do not want any option higher -- but int hat case why they were given higher? Anyway use this with care
  4. Sliding choice is also similar. It is to be used when a candidate liked the institute so much and does not want to move out
  5. Floating should be the default option

Regarding Internal Sliding

This happens after 3rd round on June 11 and NSR vacancy listing on July 4. What happens here is if a seat in any department becomes vacant, someone who is allotted seat FOR ANY PROGRAM in THAT INSTITUTE is given that seat in order of merit. In my opinion this is against overall merit and is a sick procedure. Anyway that is how it is and they have at least made this public. So, now candidates have to use more logic while seat filling. I'll try to give some inputs. There is a 3 week gap for internal sliding. During this time many research admission lists will be published starting from IISc., and at least 30 people would be moving away from NITs. Also this time PSU allotment might come around this time which can cause more sliding. So, if you have a preferred institute, do fill for ALL programs you are eligible there.

NSR Rounds

NSR round is less of a lottery as they publish the vacancy and allotment happens in order of merit. But due to internal sliding we can never know if any branch seat will get vacant. Usually the highest preferred program (say Computer Science) in a college, gets fully filled during Internal sliding and the following program (say Information Security) seats come for NSR round. But this round is not meant for poor general/OBC candidates as they have to pay  Rs 42,200 for this.

Information Brochure

http://ccmt.gatecselastrank.com

http://ccmt-obc.gatecselastrank.com

http://ccmt-sc.gatecselastrank.com

http://ccmt-st.gatecselastrank.com

 

Arjun posted in From GO Admins May 1, 2017
by Arjun
5,024 views
29

This post is only for those giving GATE 2018 and for those who are willing to give it their all. This is a general preparation plan. More detailed plan I'll give later. I'm giving this mainly because I feel many aspirants are not preparing in the right way. So, I'll give some general directions here regarding Do's and Dont's. As always every advice must have a reason and only if you are convinced about the reason you should follow it. 

AIM: To score 90+ in GATE 2018

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

How to start preparing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So, are you ready to give it ALL? 

Arjun posted in Preparation Advice Apr 29, 2017
by Arjun
20,953 views
30

Many people have been asking how to contribute to GO. So, let me brief..

As a GATE aspirant the best way you can contribute is by learning the concepts correctly, getting a good rank and giving a feedback. There is nothing more expected here. Those who knows to explain well can explain and help others. But this should never be done at the expense of one's own preparation. If one explains, he understands more. But no need to do this if you feel otherwise as repeated explanation also won't add value to your knowledge. After joining IISc/IIT or any good college, whenever you find anything you can contribute you can give back to newcomers here like admission stats, announcing research opportunities etc. I do not expect any Masters person from good colleges to contribute here as it'll affect their studies and I know how busy life there is. Aim of GO is to improve the quality of education and you can help it -- but first help must be for self.

Now, if you have enough time and want to contribute you can do it. What to contribute? If you have been here and know how things work here, you should know. I'll list 3 contributions to GO not directly related to the contents, which became quite popular

  1. Kathleen added previous year GATE questions here
  2. Pragy Aggarwal made the GATE rank predictor - this is open source
  3. Arindam Sarkar made the GO Exam plugin
  4. Bikram Ballav made the Exams

The above 4 were not asked by me and they did this on their own. So, anyone can do like this. There is no need of having a cool idea - because in the end implementation matters. If you see there is nothing innovative in GO- Q/A sites were already existing and even in GATE domain. If you do not want to implement anything, fine, you need not. On the other hand if you have an idea and want to try it no one will stop you. Just discussing any idea without wanting to implement is useless as no coders are here to do it.

Many people have asked for contributing to the GATE CSE book. I guess you would have seen the Digital Logic book last time and I plan to make other subjects on similar lines. It won't be a book of "notes". But should act like a guide for following text books. Many people have contributed to it and now whatever I want to do on it I plan to do it myself. But if you have anything specific you want to add -- say some nice programs under relevant chapters -- then you are welcome to do so. 

And if you are expecting anything in return for the contribution you need not contribute. Also plagiarism is strictly prohibited here as that is the major reason for poor education quality among graduates. So, if you copy from somewhere and answer here, you risk either being penalized or from being banned. There is no reason to answer here for getting points alone -- as there is no major advantage for it. Answer here only if you know it and you want to contribute what you know. I mean as a student answer questions only if you have a small teacher in you.

If anyone is interested in making an addon for GO it is pretty easy as GO is using the open source Q2A platform. You can get more details here.

 

Arjun posted in From GO Admins Apr 28, 2017 recategorized Jun 4, 2019 by Arjun
by Arjun
1,766 views
31
I would like to thank all the members of GateOverflow for their vital role in my Gate preparation by extending their valuable support and help by solving my doubts, queries and encouraging fruitful discussion. I had relied highly on GateOverflow answers/materials for my Gate preparation. I would like to thank Arjun Sir for his great and selfish-less support to all the GATE aspirants. I have learned a lot from his answers and found them extremely useful. Even the day before exam there were few CO questions reading them and understanding his answer actually gave me more clarity. Not only his answers and explanation but also his tips and hints were very important. I still remember his words before exam when he said "From now on in 1 week reading new things or mugging up formulas wont help. Your score is almost fixed. If you are getting 60 try to make it to 70 and do not fall on 50. This can be done using a Good eye and peaceful mindset during examination". I had kept each and every word of yours in my mind. Although I could not execute them well in exam. I made two major mistakes and that cost me 4-8 marks ( Lack of peaceful mind and good eye ). I misread the KMAP question in hurry and two X's above and below mistakenly solved as 1's. And another example of number of control flows. Calculates 2*2*2*2... = 10 * 2. = 20 instead of 2^10. The point which I want to convey is how well you had guided people right from the explanation of answers, materials, TOC decidiability concepts, to the execution of paper in exam. Thank you Sir for your valuable time and great efforts in shaping our preparation. Next inline I would like to extremely thank Bikram Sir for his remarkable efforts of making GO mentor test series which are reliable and more closer to actual GATE then anyotther series. Also thank you Sir for solving so many of my queries on GO when GATE exam was approaching closer. And even after exam thank you Sir for providing platform and helping me in challenging Set-1 CN question. Those 2 marks were again very crucial. You are very approachable and thank you for your continuous guidance. There are so many other aspirants that I would want to thank including Habib, Debashish, Sushant, Srestha for their great efforts and helping me in solving my doubts. Thus just to wind up I may not have achieved this success without all your efforts, help and support.

Thank You All,

AIR-167
yg92 posted in 2017 Apr 12, 2017
by yg92
2,301 views
32
I am Amit Sadashiv Patil, GATE 2017 AIR 31.

GO played a wonderful uplifter in my GATE preparation. All what I wanted to mention is already done by most of the toppers.

My feelings are not so different from them.

I thank all GO team and especially to Arjun sir for such a big support.
AmitPatil posted in 2017 Apr 6, 2017
1,762 views
33
Hey friends and all the aspirants of GATE 2018

I SUMIT KUMAR GUPTA,  AIR 88 In Gate 2017,  wants to share some of my experience, the flavour of my journey to all of you.

Friends first of all best wishes for all of you to opt the way to crack GATE. Really this decision would lead you to reach your dreams soon.

I also chose the same like you in 2015 , when I was in 3rd year.  I was not much aware of so much thing so I joined coaching but in final year when I wanted a trusted and helpful guidance and material for self study, soon, I came to know the MOST AMAZING AND TRUSTABLE source of preparation that is GATEOVERFLOW. yes, friend, it is no doubt best place to prepare.

you all come across a plenty of doubts and confusion during study or revision where you need some trusted and easily available source to whom you could believe and follow, friends at that time no other thing except GATE OVERFLOW would be better.

here you only needs to type your question there are so many brilliant and experienced minds to help you at the instant . and in most of the cases, your doubt would be already there with a good solution.

So dear aspirant if you are taking benefit of this platform no need to shift to other places just follow this one.

beside website doubt content, you must join FB group to get updates and queries of people in your news feed so that it make you scroll some beneficial material with your entertaining FB time.

and please don't forget to take its 2-3 test at last time to judge you and boost you before final battle because you will find a different type of question set here that will be available nowhere.

SO ALL THE BEST GUYS............ KEEP PRACTISING & KEEP LEARNING .......
Sumit Gupta 2 posted in 2017 Apr 3, 2017
3,746 views
34

So, Finally it comes to write a testimonial after writing answers, asking questions, comments here.

I must say that CS students are extremely lucky/fortunate to have GO for GATECSE preparation. So, first thanks to @Arjun Sir, for creating this platform, maintaining GO and answering queries even now.

Although there is GO book for past year problems but i preferred solving questions from Gateoverflow because of discussions here. Those discussions gave me answer to many related questions that didn't came to me.

Many points in my notes are from answers and comments here.

Thanks GO for providing right solution to many Test Series Questions and correcting questions itself at various occasions. Thanks for Rank Predicter due to which Final Result wasn't a big surprise.

Thanks Dhananjay, for helping me with my stupid doubts when i was new to GO around aug'16. ( I can remember commenting @vijaycs in every question when i was new ). Thanks Anirudh, Habib, Debashish and Kapil for your great answers and your special help to my silly messages. and how can i forget Sushant, Prajwal, Rajesh, Shobhit and srestha for your help.

To GATE18 onwards aspirants I must say : A doubt is a doubt. Get it cleared at earliest. Don't hesitate to ask even a simple query. (don't think what other users will think of you)

Thanks Gateoverflow !! It feels great to be $\tt  AIR-28$ as a final year EE undergrad. I can say for sure that without Gateoverflow the outcome of GATE'17 journey wouldn't be what it is today.

$\bf  \color{green}{(:\; Jio\; gave\; free\; net\; and\; this\; GO\; gave\; free\; knowledge\; :)}$

mcjoshi posted in 2017 Apr 1, 2017
by mcjoshi
2,842 views
35

Hello, everyone,

This post is not about advising or telling preparation strategy or motivating future aspirants.

Here I am just going to share my short story behind attempting CS Gate’17 and eventually joining this Gateoverflow platform.

I am a B.Tech graduate from NIT-Silchar in Mechanical Engineering ($2011-2015$). While I was in $3$rd or $5$th semester of my engineering I was attracted towards programming and algorithms. One of my ECE friend advised me to practice algorithmic questions from CLRS. At that time I enjoyed those topics but I was having no idea what I am going to do with my newly found interest in programming. Anyway I continued studying only programming and some standard algorithms.

It was in the year of $2015$, when I was placed in some MNC in mechanical area in the month of January, and then I got a lot of free time to seriously study more CS topics, like basics of compilers, some number theory etc. This time I was deeply involved in CS and read about different areas in computer science through various online sources. So,towards the last days of college, I finally made my decision of attempting Gate computer science in upcoming year (btw was not sure when).

In $2015$, May - June after leaving college, I studied computer organization subject from Patterson and Hennessy along with one youtube video series. It was a nice self learning experience. In the month of July, I came to Delhi and Joined in that EPC company.

While I was doing my job I completely lost touch with CS subjects. Btw I bought all CS books with my first salary :). Somehow I managed to read few chapters from Galvin, Kenneth, some NPTEL lectures on OS+CO. And my study sources were mostly books. No prev. gate QS + no coaching at that time.

I knew that, with my current situation I was nowhere near the GATE preparation, with most of the subjects untouched. I was not aware of Gatesce resources at that time.I was getting a bit tensed in the month of December'15 and January’16 regarding my future career along with my current job in mechanical.

Some days passed, 2016 gate was over. That ECE friend did prepare at home and scored AIR-294. He told me to use Gatecse and Gateoverflow.

In the month of February, I decided to join made-easy so that I could speed up my preparation in CS and complete GATE syllabus in time. I started using gateoverflow in this month. Coaching started and it was becoming rigorous after one month. I found myself in a critical situation with job schedule and new topics every day.

Because of some reason I had to resign from the job in the month of April 2016. Now I got ample amount of time to study new subjects and solve problems related to gate for the first time in my life. The joy and happiness I felt was beyond expression.

From the month of July I started regularly visiting Gateoverflow website. I found it very useful. But here is the fact regarding Gate overflow with respect to me. I never took gate overflow as a path to success in Gate. Rather I consider it in two ways : One : A source of learning computer science, because every time whenever I searched few pages in here, I found a lot of new topics that I had never touched. As I explored more in gateoverflow, I learned a lot of new topics in short span of time. Second : A way to express myself. This second reason is the perfect reason why I am writing this post today. Every Time I wrote some answers I got deeply involved in it and described it in the most natural way a naive learner would think of solving a question. At that time my knowledge was limited in CS and picked only a few Questions to answer.

In this process, I met some nice people. Manish, Kapil, Srestha, Shiva, Shushant, ManojK, Akriti, Vijaycs, Anusha, Shobhit, Sachin, Uddipta and many more. With some of them I interacted a lot till the month of december. Thank you ALL.

For me Gateoverflow became my own little facebook :). Irrespective of Gate outcome, I learned a lot from all the active GO users with their optimal answers and useful comments.

The person I must need to thank: Arjun Sir. He inspired me a lot. And I learned a lot from his answers of previous gate questions. Despite of his schedule, he is also very active on this site.Thank you Sir.

I sincerely thank the people behind this site creation and Bikram Sir for providing us with quality GO test papers.

This year I attempted GATE in CS SET-$1$. I attempted more than $70$ but, we all know mistake happens and that brought down my actual score to $59 - 3 = 56$. Finally, I got a rank $383$.

I also thank all go contributors who helped me in one or other way during last year.

Finally, I would like to say that, everything starting from computer science subjects + coaching + gateoverflow + writing answers , all these started in $2016$ and  most importantly my passion in CS and all these prevailed throughout the entire year. Thank you all and hope that I will be able to contribute more in upcoming years.

 

 

 

dd posted in 2017 Apr 1, 2017 edited Apr 1, 2017 by dd
by dd
2,493 views
36

Thanks Bikram sir for encouraging me to write this .

Yes , I needed encouragement . I never thought a person having Gate AIR 297 can motivate anyone . 

First let me tell you about myself, I am one of those students,who doesn't have any long term goal in life . Seriously before my B.tech in CS I never thought about M.tech, and in IITs ,never ever . 

So ,I heard about GATE in my second year .I was in college hostel ,where I saw one of my senior Suman Da preparing for GATE14  day and night .May be that created the first petal of my dream (may be small but for me it was a dream).So following his path me,with some of my friends joined a coaching institute in third year . But none of us was serious enough and the expected result in Gate16 AIR 3000+. Some of my friends had  great ranks in Gate16.

 

But one day something happened ,I don't know what exactly happened but I clearly remembered that made me feel ,I never had any goals ,Only one dream I have to protect it .I read most of the blogs of toppers and mainly the persons blog who dropped year after year to achieve their dreams and seriously if that is the main motivation then there is no replacement of GATE OVERFLOW. Mentors like Arjun sir, Bikram sir are awsome to motivate you .

I made my mind that I will sit for GATE 17 if not a good rank than GATE 18 .I talked with my parents, my professors and they also supported me.

Preparation 

Here comes the main part preparation and I think mental preparation is the main thing, which I already had .But for study preparation I tried to follow the 10% rule.Make notes of everything you read, because that will be needed in last two months .So prepare everything before November 15, start  tough subjects in middle of preparation and yes of course download GATE OVERFLOW book of questions and solve it beside your textbook preparation . The best part about GO book is you can practice topic wise and please don't leave it for last because there are a lot of practice test you have to take in last two months .So never leave the GO book for last else you may not get enough time and you will be depressed .Start taking tests from october 1st week ,I started it november 1st and missed a lot of tests.So I advice you not to repeat same mistake I have made.For test there are a lot of free test and some paid tests chose wisely .

Last week

The most critical week of my life till now . Each day ends so quickly and the pressure was tremendous.I left the job of an MNC which was very hard for me to get .I did not know what to do if I fail .I read motivating posts from GO talked with my Maa ,Baba. They all tried their best to made me feel positive .

Last Night 

I finished all of the tasks I have to do before 10PM, the exam was 2PM of next day .May be it sounds weird but that night I really didn't know I have slept or not but my eyes was closed . I wake up 5AM , prayed, re-read some important formulas (of the questions that gate repeats for its own bad habit )and left for Gitobitan at 11.

Exam hall 

Prepare a proper plan for those 3 hours ,if you don't then it's up to your luck . For mine plan was, 180 to 160 aptitude,160 to 120- 1 mark questions ,120 to 50 - 2 marks . Then revise .Revise priority 2 marks first , then aptitude then 1 marks ,But still exam pressure made a shortage of 20 minutes for mine .I have done a whole lot of silly mistakes ,which may be corrected if I had those 20 minutes . So plan accordingly .

Above all thank you all GO team , and specially Bikram sir ,Arjun sir and Habib Dada ,others also (If I missed anyone sorry)

Though the journey seems small but it was great for me .

I don't know  how much I can help anyone .But if you have any issue I will try my best to help .

Thank you ,there is a long way to go before death.

 

Prasanta Roy posted in 2017 Mar 31, 2017
1,770 views
37

I am a Final Year Electronics and Telecommunication student with a decent AIR of 242 in my first attempt with 5 months and 15 days of dedicated studying.

 

Let me start from the top - 

I was planning to apply for masters in the US and infact gave my GRE and TOEFL as well. I wanted to do my masters in Computer Science but being an electronics student the only way I could apply was via ECE branch and take additional credit courses, but any ways coming to the point during my internship while browsing through top colleges for masters in India I stumbled upon Ravi Shankar's blog ( AIR-1 2015) and his journey from changing his branch from Mechanical to Computer Science, that is where I got to know IIT's allow students to apply to any field.

So I started my preparation for computer science from scratch from August. I read through all preparation strategies from toppers I tried to build my own plan from that.This where Gateoverflow helped me THE MOST !! . I read through every possible answer of Arjun Sir on Quora and Gateoverflow ( I literally stalked him :P ) and after I came back from my internship in August , I studied (10 Gate Subjects + 5 Semester Subjects) in 6 months time.

The one thing I really grasped from Arjun Sir's blogs was to be Conceptually Clear in everything you solve, the every why and how matters.So my aim in this little time was not to solve as much as possible but rather understand the why in every question I solve. Bikram Sir also helped me alot in the last crucial months of my preparation. 

So, From stumbling across Ravi Shankar's blog , Stalking Arjun Sir, Maintaining 93% attendance in college , getting my heart broken (story for another time :P ) and passing my semester exams in these 6 months. I couldn't have even qualified if Gateoverflow wouldn't have been there. So a BIG THANK YOU To All OF YOU !!

I could have scored more ( lost 6.67 marks to silly mistakes) but then again every other person reading this blog feels the same way. So that's just makes it Fair :)

If I could score a decent rank against all odds. So can you. DO NOT GIVE UP till the time you come out of the Examination Hall.

AIR - 242 

 

Harsh181996 posted in 2017 Mar 31, 2017
3,921 views
38
I am an ECE, B.Tech pass out from NIT-Jamshedpur. A long story behind why I switched to CSE that I will tell in another post. First of all, salute to @Arjun sir for providing this platform. Bikram Sir and You are so so good in so so many ways. Thanks for being so generous to our each silly doubts and showed a lot of patience. This online community played a key role in GATE preparation especially for the students like me who do preparation from home without having a suitable GATE environment. Most of the GO test paper are really balanced with a good number of quality question, so big thanks to @Bikram sir for making test series possible. And thanks sir for your suggestion on avoiding my silly mistakes( But did 4-5 question silly mistakes in core section and could score 4.66 / 15 in aptitude ..:( my bad ). I didn't know about TIFR before but after seeing the question here with great ans, I even tried TIFR 16-17 and fortunately got selected in written test ( Interview is on 6th of April ). Irrespective of my GATE result, I learnt a lot just by reading answers and comments. Whenever needed any resource, gatecse.in helped a lot and with some important previous year statistics as well.  Thanks, @Praveen sir for giving the proper solution in TOC and Digital.
Finally, I want to thank all GO members who helped me in one or another way.

AIR - 265.
vijaycs posted in 2017 Mar 31, 2017
by vijaycs
4,266 views
39
A year ago if someone has said to me that I'm going to get this result I wouldn't have believed them, hell I wouldn't have believed it myself 4 months ago. Because before December 20, the day since I started using GO for preparation or I should say I actually started my preparation I was not even prepared for qualifying the exam. It was GO that took me from 5000 rank like preparation to 5.

I think what makes GO great is the community. You can find answers to questions from numerous sources but GO is the only place where you can contradict those answer, get contradicted and have a productive discussion where no matter if you were right or wrong before but you will end up better informed after. In the 50 days that I used GO I have asked a lot of questions some may be stupid or too easy for others but remember gate is an easy exam and all those stupid and basic questions you skip today will haunt you on the day of the exam. So my only advice to other aspirants is, don't be afraid to ask.  Ask for help and there always be someone to help you here at GO.

Thank You GO for all the help...

Pankaj Joshi,

AIR - 5, Gate 2017
Pankaj Joshi posted in 2017 Mar 31, 2017 edited Mar 31, 2017 by Pankaj Joshi
3,398 views
40
I joined Gate overflow last yr this time and I am active here from September.What I found here best is its reliability of Answers.Most of the questions are discussed by all aspirants.So it is such a platform which is open for arguments and asking questions till you have any doubt.And that I found very impressive about it.And many will be agreed with me that those comments and discussions made many doubts clear.

For previous year questions also this is the best source to follow as there is no other book available in market(I checked all) which is as accurate as GO.So this is a great initiative by Arjun Sir and other experts to open up such a platform to build much more stronger concepts.

So my message to future aspirants is be active here,read as much questions as u can,post those questions you facing tricky,discuss and clear ur doubt.

Thank You...

Kishalay Das

AIR-37,Gate 2017;ISRO-SC Selected
KISHALAY DAS posted in 2017 Mar 30, 2017
1,830 views