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Hi,

Everyone who prepares for any exam needs  to have some to plan of action and has to execute it in order to crack it.Let me annotate it with a quote:

“It’s not the plan that’s important, it’s the planning.” Dr. Gramme Edwards

Here is the  plan which I followed during my preparation:

I  started my preparation from  June 2015.I spent 5-6 days  reading toppers blog and tried to understand their strategy..and what I concluded is that they  all relied on self-study and standard books.I didn’t join any classroom coaching and decided to do the self study..and trust me self-study is best..It increases your knowledge a lot ..I still cherish the time which  I spent in reading standard books.

By mid-October I had completed  syllabus.After that, I just focused on revision and tests.Initially, I started with subject wise tests of Made Easy ..soon I realized that it was time to focus on full-length tests rather than subject wise tests.So last three months ie November 15 to Jan 16 I spent time in revising , practising questions( from std books,TIFR questions),giving mocks ,analyzing them  and strengthening the weak areas

I used to keep track of marks which I was getting in those tests.After giving mock I used to list my mistakes..and discuss those questions on gateoverflow..Giving mocks is important as that boosts your confidence..but blindly following them is bad.And yes one should think of mocks when he/she  is done with all previous year questions.

I used to  maintain diary recording what I studied on daily basis..like if I studied calculus from 1pm-2pm I used to record it .At the end of day, I used to go through diary and see how much I studied that day.This thing was needed to keep me motivated.Motivation and regularity are the basic ingredients to make yourself study worth.

Online sources which were helpful in preparation:

nptel lectures ,

gatecse FB group and gateoverflow(awesome site for gate cs preparation)

https://gateetude.wordpress.com

http://www.engineering.careers360.com/articles/gate-2015-topper-interview-ravi-shankar-mishra-air-1-in-computer-science-engineering

geeksforgeeks

Thank you!!!

Pooja Palod

AIR 51,2016

Although my rank is not so fancy but still GATEOverflow helped me a lot in getting good marks in GATE.It is best source  for cracking GATE with good marks. This is a place where you get a lot of questions in addition to previous year questions posted by students from all over the country. You can see the answers are well elaborated,nicely explained and by this way you will also come to know what is the quality of students sitting with you on the exam day.Experts like Arjun Suresh, Praveen Saini and others are always present to solve any doubts an aspirant can get. GATEOverflow book of previous year questions,along with answers is the best study material anyone will need. GATEOverflow answer key this time was 99%+ correct. Overall I can say that if you are preparing for Gate computer Science , using GATEOverflow is a MUST.
        Gatecse is best source of study material. I found best collection of books, links to various toppers blog and last years analysis.Gatecse is resource which any serious aspirant should know about.One should avoid studying local books as they are not even subset of standard books. One must always study from standard books. Moreover, I would suggest to prepare Mathematics well even though GATE CS has other stuffs, as Mathematics is the subject which if you study well then you have an edge over others who study other subjects and give lesser importance to Maths and it also carries a major portion of marks.Maths is the subject which you not only need for GATE but you will need it for the whole life in whatever you do.
    I want to thank founder of this website Arjun Suresh, for helping me and all the aspirants of GATE who look for coaching materials or other materials available in market as this is the only site which you one must follow whole heartedly  for succeeding in GATE. Keep doing good work and wishing all future aspirants good luck :)

Ashish Gupta

The thing with Online learning is, that there are too many resources offering what you think you need (and in the process confusing you ), but only few that know what you exactly require and give you that.

Gateoverflow gives you exaclty what you require. I gave GATE 2015 and secured a rank of 1135 , This year however, with GATEOverflow's help , i ended up achieving AIR-96

Be it Previous year's questions , questions from random test series , or which college is better for what , or where should I go . If your question is related to GATE CSE , you will not be disappointed here. All you have to do is ask. A very big plus factor is that I got an insight, on how others were thinking, and I often learnt more than 1 way to solve a question ( Praveen Sir and Other previous GATE Toppers , Thanks For that )

I owe my good rank to this community, and the GateOverflow Book (a .pdf compilation of previous year questions with well explained answers, That was the icing on the cake for me  )
 

Talk about giving back to the society , I cannot thank Arjun Sir and Pragy enough , you guys have set a standard in helping students, 

Thanks a Ton

Ganesh - AIR 96, GATE-2016

A collection of blogs by previous GATE toppers. Preparation experience and strategies they followed are given in these. 

2024

AIR 8

2021

AIR 8    AIR 13    AIR 75    AIR 118    AIR 123    AIR 152    AIR 152    AIR 179    AIR 206    

AIR 306    AIR 477    AIR 965

2020

AIR 6    AIR 12    AIR 13    AIR 29    AIR 101    AIR 129    AIR 166    AIR 188    AIR 202   

AIR 202    AIR 283    AIR 283    AIR 312    AIR 372    AIR 616

2019

AIR 45    AIR 78    AIR 86   AIR 116    AIR 175    AIR 308    AIR 388    AIR 479    AIR 498   

AIR 582    AIR 558    AIR 673    AIR 888    AIR 1454

2018

AIR 2    AIR 14    AIR 25    AIR 48    AIR 71    AIR 75    AIR 67    AIR 94    AIR 94   AIR 94

AIR 118    AIR 157    AIR 223    AIR 260    AIR 275    AIR 323    AIR 352    AIR 352   AIR 377

AIR 960   AIR 1457   AIR 1644

2017

AIR 5   AIR 20   AIR 28   AIR 31   AIR 35   AIR 37   AIR 39   AIR 70 AIR 72   AIR 77

AIR 88   AIR 164   AIR 167   AIR 172   AIR 174   AIR 207   AIR 242   AIR 248   AIR 265

AIR 297   AIR 302   AIR 383   AIR 2803

2016

AIR 1   AIR 4    AIR 28   AIR 34   AIR 51   AIR 96   AIR 119   AIR 159

2015

AIR 1   AIR 5   AIR 11   AIR 12

> 2015

AIR 8   AIR 1

Hi, I got AIR 4 in Gate Cse 2016. I will like to share about Gate Overflow.

Gate Overflow is a a very good website for Gate CSE Preparation. It has an edge over other preparation material & coaching classes.

• It's free
• you can learn from home(with comfort) - lots of time can be saved here
• for a person studying from home, it gets difficult to create gate preparation environment , here in right side chat box people talk about Gate mostly. It helps in building the appropriate Environment for Gate at your Home.
• I have noticed that coaching classes teach some extra things, that consume your time unnecessarily , so you can avoid those things here. you can choose what question to study & what not to , based on previous gate questions.
• many gate toppers are here , so nice answers come - Its a very nice way , U directly get cream concepts.

Two things matter in Gate Preparation - right concepts & then practice those concepts - both u can get here.

You should extract Good Concepts from trusted, selected answers & practice a lot here.

Best wishes to all future Gate Aspirants.

Himanshu Agarwal 

AIR 4, Gate 2016

I would like to share my experience from the point of view of student who had coaching. I joined Made Easy while I was in my final year. Some teachers were quite awesome but others were just fine. The most important advantage of joining coaching classes is that they make you regular in your studies other than that you have to do all the things by yourself. I started following Gateoverflow when there were 8-9 months left for the exam.

According to me, to get a good rank in GATE you'll need the following 3 resources:
1) http://gateoverflow.in/ : To get the clear and accurate explanations of all the previous year questions and other NON-GATE questions. Gateoverflow book contains all the questions compiled into pdf format and I highly recommend you to solve it THOROUGHLY!!!

2) http://www.gatecse.in/ : To guide you about how to do your preparation, books to study, lectures to watch, etc.

3) https://www.facebook.com/groups/gateoverflow/: This group is going to play one the major roles in your pre-GATE as well as post-GATE preparation. Experts like Arjun Suresh, Praveen Saini, etc as well as other group members are going to help in your technical as well non-technical queries.

You shouldn't get affected by the questions that you are able to solve easily but the ones that you're not able to answer should bother you. Solve to learn new concepts and not to increase your count. According to me, the quality of your preparation is going to give you a good rank rather than the quantity. If you find any difficulty during your preparation you can always contact me ([email protected])

AIR 119
Saurabh Sharma

I’ve seen people not taking up jobs and instead go to full time preparation mode immediately after BE/BTech. I believe that is wrong for those from 3rd-4th Tier college students. Instead they should first go for campus placement post BE and prepare along side job until one gets 3 digit rank like 400-700. In case one gets good rank immediately (Top 250) then one can join IIT, but if someone get 400-700 rank then it will be wise decision to do full time preparation afterwards.

Why one should go on job immediately after college instead of taking drop for GATE ->

1. Jobs give people some “Real” knowledge, where as in colleges of India, usually Clerk with Engineer degree are shipped out. It is this jobs that make them “Engineers” not the degree certificates. Whatever learning happens , it happens in training period of jobs and work.
2. Job gives peace of mind , it’ll keep your family and friend quite till you get good rank. For those who take full year drop without good rank as backup, so called “Well wishers” will come to eat the brain , what next if you fail etc. Even while giving exam, you will remain calm if you have job as backup.
3. Job gives money for things one needs -> Yeah this is true, you can buy whatever you need for preparation and other things, for entertaining, for internet, for recharges or any other expense. Those who have big education loans, should try to clear them, it is possible only via job.
4. Job gives reason for getting IIT -> While working on job, it it has service based job, looking at seniors/peers and work pressure, one get enough reasons to try for IIT, including Money.
5. Job gives you valuable experience -> Even though in IIT experience does not matter much for placements, in life, in Gate preparation too, the experience you gain while doing job helps you.
6. Job will teach you value of time and money -> It’ll help you work harder once you drop a year, because you’ll know that how much work you’ll be doing in any job. Once you start earning money automatically you’ll know the value of money.
7. You get weekends, 2 leave per month on every IT job easily , so it wont be too hard to prepare either.

This post is for those who are considering not to take job for preparing GATE and do not even have good ranks in final year. Do take job and get experience, it’ll be helpful. Do not take drop unless you are ready.

If you are in job, how you can prepare for GATE while working ?

1. You get 2 days off per week, use them to the extend possible.
2. You will get 2 days leave per month (Majority companies) use them for GATE preparation.
3. You will get 8 to 10 holidays per year in any company , use them for GATE preparation.
4. Before GATE you can take some leave (From 1 week to 3 months) based on your company policies.
5. If your company gives you cab, you can revise while traveling.
6. You can get flash card app ANKI on your mobile ,even while working you might revise for 5 minute in between  work breaks.

Taken from -> https://akashkanasegate2016.wordpress.com

Hi,

When I decided to write about my preparation I collected it all together and all recollected is that whole strategy I had I got from posts various toppers. So now Instead of writing each and every thing again, I’m going to write post link & I’m going to tell what I got from each blog post You can built your strategy from there

1. http://www.engineering.careers360.com/articles/gate-2015-topper-interview-ravi-shankar-mishra-air-1-in-computer-science-engineering => I got list of books from to use from him. This is essential read for any future toppers. Read this blog to see how someone can get AIR 1 in just few months of preparation in first attempt. Thank you Ravi for your blog.
2. http://gate2015-tamojit9.blogspot.in/ => This is really nice blog. Do have a good read. Thanks Tamjit for writing this blog. Best thing you can get from this is -> “ REMEMBER THERE IS NO SHORT CUT TO HARD WORK“
3. https://cdn.rawgit.com/AgarwalPragy/GATE16Tips/master/Tips.html => This is blog by Pragy Agrawal. Best thing to take from this is “Flashcards”. This flashcards help me revising. Thanks Pragy for this blog.
4. https://gateetude.wordpress.com/ => This is blog by Pradeep Pandey. Please check ‘https://gateetude.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/gate-paper-structure/’ this post . That is must. Every post by Pradeep is like Gold mine for serious preparing students. Thanks Pradeep for thsi blog
5. Check answer by Arvind Devraj here -> https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-way-to-study-for-GATE-so-as-to-get-a-good-rank-to-get-into-IISc He talks about which reference books to use and how to study. This is really great post, and you should definitely go through it if you are serious. Thanks Arvind for writing this blog.
6. http://gatecse.in/ and http://gateoverflow.in/ are two good resources for any serious GATE aspirant. You must go through this websites. Thank you Arjun Suresh , Kathleen bankson for creating this huge corpus of questions, for Gateoverflow book and compiling toppers blog, linking good video lectures etc.

Taken from -> https://akashkanasegate2016.wordpress.com/2016/04/01/how-i-prepared-for-gate-i-used-strategy-of-old-toppers/

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/

Hi, I’ll talk about free test series available. If you want to join any coaching class/paid test series you can join ACE, Testbook , Made Easy etc.

Okay, then what to do with test series ? Usually test series provide following type of test

1. Chapter wise
2. Subjectwise
3. Mock Test
4. Aptitude Tests (Previous year papers from all branches)

Let me be honest, I feel that neither Chapter wise or Subject-wise tests are necessary. Only full length mock tests are needed for GATE preparation. Though at the same time, I will still recommend from where to get these tests.

I’ll tell you how you can do this kind of tests for free.

Chapter Tests -> Doing this tests from  any paid test series is not required, free stuff is enough. You can get chapter wise test questions from Reference books. Newgradiance is  enough for chapter tests for many subjects. They are free. Gateoverflow book by Gateoverflow also contains chapter wise test series. You can find Gateoverflow book at Gatecse.

Subject wise tests -> Doing this tests from  any paid test series is not required, free stuff is enough. You can get whole collection of subjectwise tests free of cost from VirtualGate which is sponsored by Techtud . Doing all tests from NewGradiance may also serve purpose of solving Subject-wise Test series for subject it provides.

Full Length Tests -> For this I believe best strategy would be not to see any questions from few papers. Example -> Suppose I’m preparing for GATE 2017 and I want to have few “Real” mocks, in that case what I’ll do, I wont touch GATE 15 & GATE 16 papers while practicing questions. Then when I’m done with preparation, I have  5 “Real” GATE papers for giving Mock exams. I’ve done this , I’ve used 2 papers of GATE 15 as mock exam, for getting online touch we  can use online calculator and pdf reader. Believe me previous year mocks are best test series possible if you have not seen any question from that paper. In case you have solved few questions from them, it is useless (In my case I used to remember all questions.)

Apart from this VirtualGate which is sponsored by Techtud  is also very nice resource for getting 3+ Full lenght tests. They have already released virtual GATE 2015,2016-1,2016-2 and we can expect at least 2 more in 2017.

About Aptitude Tests -> You should try to solve all previous year aptitude tests papers from all branches. It’ll help you getting idea about Aptitude questions in general. You can use http://aptitudeoverflow.in/ for getting difficult questions.

Link to previous year aptitude questions Till 2015 -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/...

For after 2016 aptitude sets check respective IIT/IISc site for GATE and download papers. Remember all papers for any branches in same time slot have same aptitude questions.

http://www.gatecse.in/programming/

http://www.gatecse.in/data-structures/

Refer the above two links for the materials. Also do follow this blog for GATE 2017 (we won't be using moodle any more). I'll be adding some exercises as comments. Most exercises for this subject will be programming ones. 

1. Which Encoding Technique its using in Fast Ethernet
2. Something related to flow Control and access control (Don't remember the exact question)
3. you have worked on android so do you know about android Database and its supported data types ?
4. Why linux has become very much popular ?
5. Basics about pointer and some operation using this ?
6. What is Race conditions ?
7. What is Shared Memory ?
8. One program output they asked to me (There was a board to explain the concepts didactically in case you need or you are asked )

• Operating System
• Computer Networks
• Programming in C / Data Strcuture
• Algorithm
• TOC
• Compiler Design
• Digital Logic 
• Databases (Mostly SQL queries and normalization)

1.  GATE/TIFR
2. Other Exams for PSUs/SAIL/HAL/Others

Competitive exams like gate only concepts is not enough you need strategy to solve problems ,You need to follow good strategy ,this 10 strategy steps helps you to increase you problem solving technique and aid in better problem solving skill:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkY4M3a022Q

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8FKFk12jI

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AWX_X3zUao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z9XIS-sSZU

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el1QvhYppbI

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXO7nPil5sM

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glYOz8XSKF4

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_73It1kd1E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW11z8xp-cw

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3hhj4E99_w