Tips for GATE aspirants

1. Set your goals – Different goals have different strategies and hence it is important to define your goals in terms of the rank you want to achieve. If you are aspiring for the top IITs or PSUs, you will need a rank of less than 1000 and hence you will have to prepare thoroughly on all topics. On the other hand, if your goal is to just qualify, then you can afford to leave out 2-3 topics from your preparation.
2. Take a diagnostic test – Before starting your preparation it is important to know your initial level of competence.  An analysis of your performance in this test will tell you your strengths and areas where improvement is required. Based on this, you can device your preparation strategy.
3. Build your concepts – GATE is an exam which tests concepts as well as their application thoroughly. Join a good classroom program or a online tutoring program which will help strengthen your concepts.
4. Practice makes man perfect – As the old adage goes, there is nothing better than extensive practice. Solve all types of questions you come across in various books and be prepared on all question patterns
5. Familiarize with formulae – Engineering subjects have a lot of formulae, which more often than not have to be memorized. Noting down all formulae as and when you finish each topic or referring to a collection of formulae will help you get familiar.
6. Focus on high-return topics – Engineering Mathematics and General Ability constitute 30% of the total marks and are relatively easier to score in. You could look at some online lectures to prepare in these topics.
7. Appear in a Mock Test Series-– Take up a mock test series as it will help you adapt to the online pattern. It will also help you assess your preparation and based on the test analyze you can focus on areas that you are weak in and can prepare those areas. It will also give you exhaustive practice on different types of questions
8. Make your own exam strategy –Based on your experiments in the mock test series, you can fine tune your own exam strategy. Some people like to start solving a paper from the first question, while some people like to glance through the entire paper and start answering questions from their areas of strength.
9. Relax before the exam – One day before GATE, stop thinking about it. Watch a movie or anything that relaxes you. Appear for the exam with a fresh mind.
10. Remember that GATE is not the end of the world – Put your best foot forward and do not worry excessively about the results.

My routine was to complete studying 1 subject (out of 10 in PE syllabus) from standard books, attempt its subject test from 1-2 test series, solve previous GATE questions from this subject, analyze problem areas, clear them and when I was done with each subject, I started with full syllabus tests. I used to give 1 full syllabus test daily in the morning itself and then analyze my mistakes and frequent errors and try to overcome them.

Instead of making written notes, took a screenshot of important pages and made a PPT which had all these pics, for each subject. This served as my notes for final revision. So that means 10 PPTs for 10 subjects in GATE PE syllabus, this saved time as I didn’t have to write everything.