How to prepare for GATE

The Concept Building Phase: For the technical section, start working on topics where your concepts are strong. Practice as many questions as you can and ensure that you score heavily in these topics. If you are aiming to qualify GATE, a score in the range of 25-30 out of 100 should be sufficient and thus you can afford to ignore a couple of topics of declining importance. The aptitude section this year could well be the deciding factor. So ensure that you have this section covered thoroughly. Good training, both classroom or online will help you in this phase. The Self – Evaluation Phase: It is extremely important for you to know how you have geared up for the exam. And this becomes critical in case of a change in pattern, wherein you should know not just how you have coped up with the changes but also how your competition has adjusted. A test series conducted on an All India basis, will help you know all this and will also provide you with invaluable practice. Remember, weaknesses cannot become strengths overnight. Hard work and perseverance will pay in the long run. While, the normal time duration for preparation for GATE is 6 months, if the basic concepts of the candidate are good, a student can start seriously preparing for GATE even 4 months before the test. It is however important for the candidate to understand the type of questions asked in GATE and have sufficient practice in the numerical questions. It is also advisable to be well prepared in aptitude questions since they have 15 marks allotted which is a significant number considering the qualification cutoff will be only 25-30 marks. Admission Process after GATE Once the initial hurdle (GATE) is cleared, an aspirant is faced with another – that of the admission process of various colleges. Each department of each college has a different selection procedure which often creates confusion and indecisiveness in the mind of the aspirant. For example, the ME program at the IISc has direct admission whereas the M.Tech program has a written test followed by an interview and the MS program has only an interview. Hence a candidate has to prepare for all processes thoroughly. Also, one has to apply to each department separately since there is no common counseling procedure. Hence each candidate has to judiciously select departments where he has the best chance of getting admission, given his GATE rank. A rank of below 100 would pose no problems as it would guarantee a seat in either the IISc or top IITs, but if you have secured a rank above 100, the options get confusing, especially while choosing the combination of institute and specialization and also in cases of inter disciplinary admissions. This is where a student will do well to take expert guidance. (Please visit www.gateforum.comfor a comprehensive post GATE admission guide) The last date for application to some institutes such as IISc and few IITs is only a few days after the GATE results are announced. Therefore students will have to start research on where to apply even before the GATE results are announced, especially if they are expecting good ranks. The top institutes which offer admission based on GATE score are IISc Bangalore and seven IITs. There are several other good colleges that take students for masters program through GATE - The 20 NITs located across the country, the university colleges such as Jadhavpur University, Anna University, IT BHU, Osmania University, Delhi Technological University. All the private colleges offering M.Tech in India admit students based on the GATE score. The approximate cutoffs for admission to various institutes is given below IISc IITs NITs University Colleges AIR Upto AIR 200 Upto AIR 500 Upto AIR 1500 Upto AIR 3000