GATE - What is it and how to crack it?

GATE - Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering

Post Engineering, all Engineering students come to a crossroad, where they have to make a choice – a choice that defines their career for the rest of their lives. The three options available to them are MBA, M. Tech or a job. Given the current situation in India, most of the engineering colleges are not able to give a 100% placement, which results in the candidate making a choice between MBA and M. Tech. This article is about choosing the second option : M.Tech, and the exam that holds the key to the best institutes for M.Tech, the GATE.

Prospects after GATE

Before going into more details, it is important to understand what you can do after clearing GATE. First of all, you can do MTech at many top institutes of the country including IITs and IISc, Bangalore. Alternatively, you may directly apply for PhDs at these institutes and may get through if you have a good undergraduate score, an aptitude for research and a good GATE score. You may also apply for certain public sector jobs in the field of Engineering, Science and Technology. GATE score is considered highly by many top R&D organizations such as ISRO and BARC.

MTech is not for those who are just looking for a job at the end of the course, especially if you think getting to IIT and other top colleges means that. Getting a job after IIT or other reputed institutions is not as important as utilizing the opportunities and facilities provided at the IITs to study more advanced topics in Computer Science and to get your feet wet into Research. A seat into IITs may mean high amount of course work in first year and even more research work in the second year. The impetus here is on creating productive work through assignments and breakthroughs through research. If this is not the profile you are looking for, please do not dream to go there. You will not be able to survive.

Why does one choose CAT over GATE or vice-versa?

Most of the students choose management because they perceive that a management person makes more money than a research person. This might have been true in the past. But now that companies like Google, Microsoft, Motorola, Audi, Mercedes and Honda are beginning to outsource their R&D to India, the demand for Research oriented people is on the rise. "Virtually every single global IT major is rapidly expanding its footprint into India," says Som Mittal, president, Nasscom. As of now, 100 Fortune 500 companies - including Delphi, Eli Lilly, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, DaimlerChrysler and others - have put up R&D facilities in India over the past five years. Considering the scenario, M.Tech is no longer the underdog. And the increasing number of students appearing for GATE has been a testimony to this.

One needs to consider factors other than monetary as well before he makes the choice. CAT is for management, and management means management of people, finance, affairs of a company, strategizing etc. So people who are good at management, and have interest in pursuing this should pursue management as their career. M.Tech, however, entails a research oriented job or a faculty position in a university. Down the line, these people may even take up a management position in a research based enterprise. However, essentially both kinds of careers are for a completely different persona and interests.

Though the number of GATE aspirants is equal to or probably even more than CAT aspirants, it has largely been neglected by the media as well as the coaching institutes. Till date, to my information, there is not a single GATE coaching institute with pan India presence. Though there are so many mock test series available for CAT, none of the coaching institutes are offering that for GATE (I've heard one coaching institute called GateForum has started such stuff recently).

After one makes a choice as to what he would take up as a career, he needs to prepare well for it. And to prepare well, he needs to know and understand what GATE is all about.

So what is GATE all about?

GATE is organized by IITs and IISc, which have pioneered advanced education at master’s level in India. The sole purpose of GATE is not only to conduct a test for admission but to identify the suitable engineers/researchers in various domains and make them choose their area of interest in which they can pursue their master’s degree. As you must know by now, GATE is only organized by IITs and IISc, which always try to innovate and introduce new systems to test the basic knowledge of candidates in various fields. As a part of that innovation, the previous year GATE papers were fully objective type. This year also the same pattern is being used, and aptitude added!! Although this made the job relatively easier for the evaluators, the candidates now have a bound choice to cover all the topics. As you know, the setting of questions papers at IITs and IISc in itself is very interesting. The designated faculties in each of the areas who provide the syllabus of a particular stream have the burden to set the questions which is finally combined to a full length paper. Being set by the highly qualified faculty, the questions papers are not like a very traditional one. They always try to test the very basics of candidates in respective areas by bringing the element of innovation in these papers. It is not surprising that sometimes the questions are mere applications of basic concepts in their area of research. The implication of this, it seems is that cracking GATE with a very high percentile is merely having the basics cleared. No! Absolutely not! As innovations are always a part of the question paper, one needs to be able to apply the basics in a new application, too. That is why similar to JEE, GATE is altogether different from other competitive exams. Here in GATE, one needs to prepare thoroughly by understanding the basics. It’s not at all the mugging up the end results (formulae) and directly applying them; instead, you need to know the principle in the derivation of those end results because in most of the cases the questions are based on the basic principle involved in the derivation, or the case where they may ask the behavior of the system under some other conditions or simple application of that result.

To secure a very high percentile you should always remember the fact that you are adjudged relatively not absolutely. Hence, your rank obviously depends on how you performed relative to your competitors. Many times, it happens that the candidates are sure of getting many questions correct. But one should always know that although the questions have only one correct answer, other probable choices are deliberately put there to confuse the candidates. In that sense, preparing the choices other than the correct one is also a part of bringing the element of innovation into the paper.

What is relative scoring in GATE??

To explain the concept of relative scoring, let me tell u a small story--

Two friends, Ram and Shyam, are out on a safari in Kenya. En-route they see a vast stretch of land covered with velvette-ish green layer of grass. They get out of their car, relax, put off their shoes and start walking bare footed. Suddenly they see a tiger running towards them. Ram starts running whereas Shyam starts putting on the shoes. Puzzled, Ram asks Shyam, "Do you think you can outrun the tiger just by have the shoes on?" Shyam replies back, "I don't need to outrun the tiger. I just need to outrun YOU!"

India has a huge intellectual capital. With so many intelligent brains competing with each other, percentile/comparative evaluation is the most logical solution for admission to IISc and the IITs, which in turn have a limited number of seats. With this kind of comparative evaluation, the institutions are able to simply take the best of the lot and leave the rest. You should be aware that only 4 out of a thousand students giving GATE get a chance to be interviewed by IITs and the IISc. The numbers getting admission to these institutions are even lesser. So being good is not enough. You should be one of the better ones amongst the best.

The question that poses itself to the GATE aspirants now is, how one should prepare, what methods he/she should adopt which would ensure his/her admission into the esteemed IITs or the IISc.

 So how to prepare for GATE?? specifically GATE 2010 and 2011?

 The preparation for GATE should be highly focused. I suggest that GATE must be taken in isolation and not with GRE/CAT etc if you are seriously interested in it. However with the introduction of General Aptitude section (which forms a huge 15 % of the paper), the story is a little different this year. Those who have been preparing for CAT and other management exams will have an upper hand in this section. I suggest one to go through the training materials provided by MBA coaching institutes (TIME, IMS, CL etc) to tackle this section. They are brief and to the point.

Coming to the technical aspect, if you have the stamina to study hard, you’d have probably completed the work in 6 months or so (if you have your basics in place). I believe 6-7 months of preparation is more than sufficient to prepare for GATE. However, as ever, this is a completely speculative stat.

The preparation should ideally be done for the entire course. But, if you can carefully plan your distribution, you can afford to be weak in one or two topics. I ideally suggest that nobody does that. Its kinda risky.

Before the marathon begins, the runner puts in months, even years, of effort before he actually runs the race. As the saying goes, get your fundamentals right. GATE is an exam that tests you on your fundamentals. The questions are generally derivations of the fundamentals. Preparation for GATE is an ongoing process, and is supposed to happen in stages. First get your fundamentals right, and then test yourself on those fundamentals. When you have done this, you should pitch yourself against the competition, which means a mock test which would give you a percentile to let you know where you stand amongst the competitors.

Here are some things apart from working on your engineering concepts that you should do for a complete preparation for GATE:

1. Solve previous years GATE papers: Solving previous years papers gives you a fair idea of what the actual paper would be like. It also brushes up your basics and exposes your areas of improvement. Let me tell you one thing, solving previous 10 year papers and understanding the concepts involved in those questions, forms the 50% of preparation for GATE !!

2. Solve test papers: Solve as many test papers as possible. This actually is the best way to keep improving as you prepare for GATE.

3. Analyze : Analyzing your test results is a very important part of taking the test. If you do not analyze, the test does not add value. You should minutely analyze and define as to where you could have scored more; analyze your accuracy rates in various topics and maintain a topic wise datasheet which lists your performance topic wise for different test papers.

4. Take up an all India test series which gives you your percentile and All India Rank: This is very important to avoid the frog-in-the-pond syndrome. Students tend to take it easy if they attain a high score in the tests. However, GATE is an exam in which people are selected on their relative scores. So even if you have scored 95% it does not essentially translate to a percentile of 95. You are competing with the best in India, and to get through GATE you should know where you stand to be among the top few selected for the interview. A test series of this sort is being provided by some of the coaching centre in India (like Vidyalankar, GateGuru, GateForum, Elite Academy etc.)

5. Simulate actual test environment: This is very important. The actual test happens in a classroom, and is timed. When you take up the test, switch off your cell phone, have a timer which times your tests, and avoid taking any breaks. Also, if possible, take up a mock test series which enables you to take the test in a classroom environment.

How do you choose which coaching material to go with?

This is something that is quite subjective. A coaching material cannot be assessed until you have gone through it. So, you could go by the word of your seniors as to what coaching material they followed to prepare for GATE.

Here are some parameters on which you can decide whether you should go for a particular coaching institute, use a particular coaching material, or tests:

1. Uniqueness in their study material: Study material provided by the coaching institutes is of little assistance if they are compact copy-paste or rewrite of materials taken from other books. If the reading of such material doesn’t increase interest and enjoyment then they are not worth it. There are plenty of standard books on each subject by good authors, which can make your study enjoyable during preparation.

2. Collection of quality books in their library: During the process of theory conceptualization and building application capabilities, you need good books, which can really put your brain on exercise. Check out their library!

3. Flexibility in the Coaching Model: What happens when your pace of learning is much faster or slower than the average? Is there any mechanism by which the model can identify exactly where you need help and provide the same? Is it possible in that coaching model to minimize the wastage of your time?

4. Quality of questions discussed: Number of questions discussed is not that important. By discussing and solving 10-15 conceptual questions on each topic you can build a good application capability. On the other hand solving many tricky non-conceptual questions will simply waste your time.

5. Tests and evaluation model: How is the progress of your preparation tested and analyzed? To what extent the feedback helps in identifying the areas for further work? Here I must say that this is the most crucial part of the preparation. This is the area where most of the students fail due to lack of proper test materials which can help them to build in themselves a real-test-like environment and temperament. Once you are able to choose the correct assistance for your GATE journey, it will be an enjoying and thrilling experience.

What happens after the exam?

By around mid of March, the notifications for various IITs and IISc will start coming out. You have to fill them up with your GATE score. IISc, IITM call people directly on the basis of their GATE score. IITK, IITD, IITB, IITG give direct calls to top rankers that can vary between 1 to 100, depending upon the IIT. IITK closes about 80. Then they call guys for interview. Not more than 30% weight age will be given to the interview. After interview, IITK closed about 133, while others may close about 150-200. (This is based on past trends and my analysis and may change this year)

Opportunities for MTech after giving GATE in CS:

S. No.	Subject of MTech	Department	Institution	Possible ranks till where it may go down. *
1	Comp. & Automation	Comp. & Automation	IISc, Bangalore	50
2	Internet Science	Comp. & Automation	IISc, Bangalore	75
3	CSE	CSE	IIT Kanpur	200
4	CSE	CSE	IIT Bombay	200
5	CSE	CSE	IIT Delhi	225-250
6	CSE, various specializations	CSE	IIT Kharagpur	250
7	CSE	CSE	IIT Madras	300
8	CSE	Electronics	IIT Roorkee	350
9	CSE	CSE	IIT Guwahati	500
10	Comp. Tech	EE	IIT Delhi	300-400
11	IT	KReSIT	IIT Bombay	400 – 800
12	Comp. Appl.	Maths	IIT Delhi	300
13	Various Specializations	--	IIITs	400-550
14	CSE	CSE	DCE/NSIT	600-700

(*) The ranks provided here are pure guess work and have been kept on the higher side. This means that is the actual admissions are expected to close at a higher rank than stated here. But it is reasonable to apply if you have this kind of rank.

Some tips regarding GATE for Applying for a course:

1.   The MTech IT course is run by Kanwal Rekhi School of IT (KReSIT) at IITB. The course is as good as the CS MTech with slightly more impetus on CS applications. However, their selection process was different till last year. They gave call to a lot of students till a low rank and have some tests/interview for them. That's why precisely the rank is low, not because the course is bad or anything. A similar posture was adopted by IITK few years ago. So, some things are unpredictable. This year KReSIT has merged with CSE department of IITB so I am unaware of their selection process. That's precisely why I said that the cut offs there in was just a humble estimations from my side. You accept it at your own risk.

2.   The MTech IT at IITR is pretty bad. Previously, it was not even run at Roorkee. They ran at the ERDC campus at NOIDA. I am unaware about the resent status. Now, the MTech course is a total experience starting from the hostel life through to placements. A major part of it is lost in this course. So, do that at your own peril.

3.   IIITs are placed higher than NITs because they are good. They are having good faculty. They are developing well into research and getting good response from the Industry. The NITs are lacking the impetus to perform well in research. I have many classmates who have done their MTech from NITs and they verify the fact. So, I will maintain my rating for IIITs.

4.   BARC etc are not taking you for education. They are taking you for placement as Scientist. Though, joining them has its own benefits:

o  You can do your PhD later under the QIP program.

o  You can join MTech side by side and join BARC and get your MTech converted into sponsored one. You get a higher fellowship during your MTech.

o  You sign a bond and that's a problem.

  

   5.   Your GATE score is your percentile. If they ask you for rank, you may provide that. But GATE score,        nationwide, is regarded as your percentile.

One thing that needs to be kept in mind is that there are various courses that a CS guy can take up. Apart from MTech (CS), you can also do MTech in Aerospace, Industrial and Management Engg., Computer Technology, Computer Applications, Reliability and Industrial Engg., and also MDes at various IITs. If any of you want to do these courses, you may get through with slightly lower GATE score. The exact score needed may be obtained through the sites of the various IITs. You can always mail a student who is doing it at any IIT to get more information.

Of course, after this, there are a host of other A grade colleges like the RECs, NITs, VJTI, DCE, NSIT, VIT, IIITs etc. There has been a lot of talk about eligibility of students with low aggregate in B.Tech. The matter boils down to your GATE rank. If you are good nobody cares, and if not, the Institute has a good reason to reject you - they have others. So a good GATE score absolves you of yous B.Tech sins.

Once you receive your call, you send your draft and acceptance letter. And join on the said date!! Bingo, you are heading towards you MTech!!!!

I wish you all the very best in your attempt.

For any other querry or help, please feel free to contact me.

The author of this article is GATE-2005 qualified with an AIR-259 and did his M.Tech in Networking from VIT University, Vellore with a CGPA of 9.4. After working as an aerospace engineer for more than 3 years, he is currently into a host of services including teaching and educational consultancy.