How to attempt GATE 2015?

By Ankit Goyal

GATE 2015 commenced on January recently and for anyone aspiring to pursue M.Tech studies, it is one of the most important exams.

I know how much pressure each one of you must be feeling right now as I have been through this phase twice. You have prepared for this exam day in and day out and now is the time where you get the chance to test your preparation against some of the brightest minds in the country. Through this post I would like to suggest few tips and tricks that may help you on the exam day.

The first and the foremost thing to do is to stop studying any new topic now as whatever you have studied till now is sufficient and try to maximize the outcome from those topics. Learning a new topic now might make you lose marks in the already covered topics.

Secondly, stop studying and revising anything 12 hours before the exam as that will only unsettle your mind rather than helping you out in the exam.

Thirdly, get a good night's sleep on the night before the exam and try to avoid distractions like mobiles so that you sleep early and wake up afresh.

At this moment, one should try to stay away from all the negativity and negative people. It is not a problem if you keep to yourself on the final day.

Keep your emotions in check on the exam day that is you should not feel excited or nervous before or during the exam. That means you should even attempt all problems with a calm mind even though you may have no idea about the problem or you may know the solution beforehand. This is because the reason that many students do not achieve their potential is not because they knew very less but rather because they couldn't do well in whatever they knew.

Avoid eating heavy oily food on the night before the exam as a stomach upset can hurt you badly on the exam day.

Have a light breakfast before the exam so that you do not feel sleepy during the exam.

These are some of the points that can help you during the exam and let me now discuss the strategy for attempting the exam. Some of the points that you must keep in mind while attempting the exam are:

• Attempt the exam with a calm head and don't judge the level of examination based on just the level of first few questions as the questions afterwards may be on an entirely different level than the first few ones.
• Have a clear strategy in mind on how to attempt the exam. This strategy may be different for different candidates and this is forged by attempting numerous mock tests. In my case I attempted the exam in a serial manner that is I first attempted 1 mark technical Section in about 45 mins, then I went on to attempt Aptitude Section in next 20 mins as that helped me take my mind away from technical. This helped me refresh and then I attempted 2 mark technical Section and completed the exam in about 2.5 hours so that i was left with ample time to revise the questions that i marked during first attempt.
• Since the paper consists of 65 questions to be attempted in 180 minutes so don't be in a hurry to attempt any question as calculations must be carefully checked specially in case of Numerical Type Problems.
• Don't devote too much time on a single problem otherwise you will be left with a lot less time to attempt the rest of paper.
• If you are not able to attempt many problems in technical section than better go and attempt aptitude section as that will refresh your mind and relieve some pressure.
• Try to finish first attempt with 2-2.5 hours so that you can go back and improve upon your mistakes that you committed in first attempt. In my case i changed my response for 4-5 questions and that helped me avoid losing 5 marks at the least.
• So guys at last i would like to summarize by saying that you should have faith in your abilities as the pressure that you are feeling at this stage is being felt by candidates across the country. So give your 100% and don't care about the rest as your efforts will not go in vain.

About the author:

Ankit completed his B.Tech from IIT Indore in Electrical Engineering in 2013. He appeared for GATE-2013 during his final year and acquired an All India Rank(AIR) 8. He again took the exam in 2014 and emerged as a topper with an AIR-1. Ankit was also a gold medalist in his batch. Currently, he is working at Qualcomm India Private Limited, Bangalore.