Crack GATE with 2 Months of Self-Study

Intro

I will talk about my ~2 months experience of preparing for GATE 2020. Hope this helps you find your way to prepare for GATE. Please note that everyone is unique in themself and have their own way of studying. I am writing my way of studying, but I would suggest that you modify it to suit your style.

To begin, do NOT get scared of GATE just because everyone says that it is hard. I found GATE to be easier than college exams.

Anyone can crack GATE. He/She does not have to get rank 1 in class/college to get into top 5 IIT / get All India Rank(AIR) below 100. GATE is solely based on logic and NOT rote memorization.

Even a non-CSE student said to me that after spending 2 months studying from my books he got the confidence to clear GATE easily. So, do not concern yourself with what stream you are/were studying in.

My AIR was 112. And, after the exam when I analyzed my paper, I found that had I not made silly mistakes, I could have got AIR below 50.

I would distribute the importance of books, previous year papers and practice test as follows:

• Books and past knowledge = 40 % (books are useful to recall what one has learnt in the college and know concept which are there in GATE)
• Previous Year Paper = 40 % (to know the important topics and concepts which are repeatedly asked, and understand their basics)
• Practice Test = 20 % (know topics one is weak at and work on them to create drastic rank difference, and know the question which can be asked but were NOT read/solved before or found in the books)

Daily Routine

I would manage to follow it ~70 %

• 6:00 - 8:00 : Wakeup, do exercise(Yoga and Pranayam), get ready, have breakfast
• 8:00 - 12:00 : Study for ~4 hours
• 12:00 - 13:00 : Lunch and break time
• 13:00 - 17:00 : Study for ~4 hours
• 17:00 - 17:15 : Break for snacks
• 17:15 - 18:00 : Study for 45 minutes
• 18:00 - 18:30 : Dinner and relax
• 18:30 - 20:30 : Study for ~2 hours
• 20:30 - 21:00 : Break, watch television
• 21:00 - 22:00 : Study for ~1 hour
• 22:00 - 22:30 : Plan for the next day and go to bed

On an average, I would study 7 hours per day. And after every hour, I would take a small 5-10 minute break to refresh my mind which helps remember better. And, during those small breaks, I would do activities which would act like a reward for studying for that one hour which motivates the mind to work harder. Have a look at this video.

Resources

Note: I am not endorcing or insisting on buying any of these resources. I am just saying what I have experienced. It just turned out that the below resources were helpful to me. But some other resources may be helpful to you.

As Voltaire says “The best is the enemy of good”. Don’t go searching for the best resource to prepare for GATE (or anything you wants to learn or prepare for). Just consult few people whom you trust and start. My brother’s friend had suggested me to use ACE academy books and MadeEasy testseries, and without a second thought, I decided to use them for my preparation.

Each one of the above resource has its own pros and cons. In case of any doubt, I would compare their content. There have been situations where each resource would give different answer to the same question/topic. In such situation, I would do some deep research on that question/topic and write that down.

Following are the resources I used:

• ACE Academy books for GATE 2020
• MadeEasy test-series of ~15 full syllabus tests : they ask previous year question with slight modifications
• gateoverflow - to check solutions and get concepts cleared
• geeksforgeeks - to check solutions and get concepts cleared
  • GATE CS Notes - https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/gate-cs-notes-gq/
  • Last Minute Notes - https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/lmns-gq/

How to use the resources

• Had a bookmark for each subject (just tore few blank pages from my rough book and again split them into 3 to 4 small parts for each subject)
• Pencil, Highligher, Blue Pen, Red Pen - In the first reading, I would highlight the important points and use pencil to underline things. In the second reading, I would use blue to pen to mark important things. In the third reading, I would use red pen to mark the most important points. And, so on.
• R, A++, A+, A, B, C - I would mark all questions and topics with these marking.
  • R : just read once before the exam
  • A++ : the most important topics which must be read before the exam, these are always read/solved
  • A+ : second most important topics, these are always read/solved
  • A : third most important topics, these are mostly read/solved
  • B : fourth most important topics, these are read/solved only during the initial revision sessions
  • C : fifth most important topics, these are generally skipped and only read once after marking it as “C”
• I had solved all previous year question after 2010, and sometimes solved question which were asked before 2010 as well.
• Last 20 days (3 weeks - from 15 Jan to 3 Feb):
  • Solve practice test at 14:30 - 17:30 (because this was the timing for my GATE 2020 exam)
  • Solve 3 previous year papers (i.e. 2017, 2018, 2019 in my case)
  • Find areas of improvements and topics which are to be revised and practiced more
  • Focus more on important topics based on what has been seen in practice tests and previous year papers
• If I refer any online source for clarification, then I would write the necessary thing either in the book or on a separate page/notebook so that I do not have to ever search the same thing on the internet
• I would also write notes for few specific topics. Example:
  • For computer networks, I had written 2-3 page notes describing all the features of each layer. I had written this because each book/website would only list few properties/characteristics of the layer. So, I read all of the them and wrote them to get a complete overview.
  • For descrete mathematics, I had written notes for relation between poset, set, latitice, …
  • Any theory or question which I find important were written on page/notebook.

Soft copy

• Study Table Image
• Study Log PDF which I used to write everyday to know what to revise the next day and during the weekends.
• Summary of what chapters are complete
• Bookmarks
• GATE Notes
• Compiler Notes - I made them after GATE but felt that they would have been very useful had they been written before the exams. This link for referred for the content.

Books read while preparing for GATE

• Raj Bapna’s Mind Power Study Techniques
  • For revision plan strategy.
• Open Eyed Meditation, by - Sudha Murthi
  • I would read this during break time
• Atomic Habits, by - James Clear
  • It helped me improve my preparation efficiency.

IMPORTANT: Give in all your efforts in the first attempt and prepare for the exam such that there is no second chance or alternative for you and you will be able to clear the exam.

👍 All the best!