GATE 2020 Exam Preparation Guide

GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) is one of the most important and in-demand entrance exam for engineering graduates in our country. M.Tech. in Computer Science is one of the most demanding courses at prestigious institutes like IISCs and IITs. GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) is one of the paths to get into these top institutes. Every year more than 9 Lakh candidates apply for GATE exam and very few of them manage to ace the exam with good score. So the competition is clearly very tough and simply preparing without any strategy will make it difficult to land you into IISCs and IITs.

How to prepare for GATE Examination?

To prepare for a national level entrance exam like GATE, you need analytical, strategical and consistant approach. Completion of syllabus, previous years question papers and mocktests should be the basic ingredients in GATE 2020 Preparation.

Tips for GATE 2020 Preparation

Below are a few essential tips that shall help ypu crack GATE 2020:

Analyze GATE syllabus:

Start with analyzing the GATE syllabus. Start divide and Conquer, try to break the syllabus into sub-categories and do the same with each subject further. It will help you to prioritize subjects and important topics in each subject. After doing this, you will get a clear insight into where you stand and how far is left to cover. Analyzing and knowing about the syllabus in a proper manner will also help you to understand about the important subjects and pattern of GATE exam.

Start preparing today:

Time is like money, so spend it wisely. The best time to start your GATE preparation is from now on, just after completing this read. Just pick one of the subjects you feel good and start the preparation. You can start your preparation with some easy and high scoring subjects like DBMS, Operating Systems or Computer Networks (totally depends on individual). After completing the first subject and its GATE questions, you should immediately pick the second subject. As soon as two subjects are completely prepared, you will start feeling more confident and motivated. After completing one subject, the next task you would be doing, that should be solving previously asked GATE questions of that subject. It will help you to expose your weak topics, try to work on those weak topics and resolve those questions to avoid that weaker point.

Follow a disciplined schedule:

You should make a schedule and should follow it at any cost, literally. Try and schedule a fixed number of hours for your GATE preparation and complete it daily; remember, consistency is a compulsion here. The better option is to start maintaining a calendar from starting day to intended course completion day and stick it in front of your study table. Every day you completed those hours, mark the date with green pen and do the same with red pen if you missed.

Take running notes while studying:

Note down the important points or topics in a notebook while covering the topics. It will definitely help you in revisions. Decide one day in a week to revise one of your previously completed subjects and use your notes.

Subjects easy to score:

There are few subjects which you will find easier to score, like Digital Logic, Mathematics and Aptitude. These three subjects cover around 25-28% of complete GATE paper. Try not to avoid these subjects uncovered as they are high scoring and will help to boost your GATE AIR.

Track your preparation periodically:

Get some previous GATE questions and solve them for each subject. It will help you to recall and revise the subjects you were preparing for.

Revise and practice are keys to GATE:

After completing each subject, start revising each subject thoroughly. Revise the subject then solve previous year GATE question and take subject-wise tests. Remember, the only keys to score good All India Rank is to revise and practice more.

Take Mock Tests:

At this final stage of preparation, practicing some difficult questions before attempting actual GATE will boost your confidence and improve your problem-solving speed. Questions in these Mock Test resembles with GATE actual questions and will give the GATE aspirants trailer before the Film.

Use short notes:

At this final and crucial stage, don’t try to read any new topic. Just use your last minute notes to recall only the key points in each subject.

Some other Important Tips

Time management is important:

Keep following the schedule for this long time won’t be an easy task. Though, you can achieve it with time management. Making a schedule for each subject and topics will be very helpful. Wasting time is the worst thing any GATE aspirant can do while preparation. Also, keep yourself distant from time killing machines like social media and random youtube surfing etc.

Since, no one can study the whole day; nor it is efficient. You can make a healthy hobby like reading novels, watching comedy or animation movies or anything you truly like. Use this as a reward to yourself each time you finish the target.

Stay motivated, but more inspired:

Being motivated gives you energy to study and help you stay focused, so be motivated. But with passing one/ two-months motivation might decrease because of the efforts you are putting in this preparation. Here, the inspiration comes into the picture. Remember one thing and that is motivation is an external force to keep you moving but Inspiration is something which comes from inside.

“Inspiration is one thing and you can’t control it, but hard work is what keeps the ship moving. Good luck means, work hard. Keep up the good work.”

-Kevin Eubanks

You can refer to the books given below

Computer Science (CS)

Name of the Book	Name of Author
Operating System	Galvin
Algorithm	Cormen
Architecture	Hamacher
TOC- Theory of Computation	Ullman

Agricultural Engineering (AG)

Name of the Book	Name of Author
Concept of Agricultural Engineering	Mohanty Das
Soil & Water Conservation	VVN Murty
Farm Machinery by Three Authors	(popularly known by this name)

Electrical Engineering (EE)

Name of the Book	Name of Author
Fundamentals of circuits	Alexander, Sadiku
Electrical machines	Nagrath, Kothari
Power Electronics-	P S Bimbhra

Chemical Engineering (CH)

Name of the Book	Topic referred for
JP Holman	Heat Transfer
McCabe -FPM and MO	Unit Operations of Chemical Engineering
BK Dutta	Principles of Mass Transfer and Separation Processes
Fogler	Essentials of Chemical Reaction Engineering
JM Smith	Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics
Ram Prasad	Chemical Engineering For Gate Principles Solved Problems & Objective Type Questions
M.Subbu	An Insight into Chemical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering (ME)

Name of the Book	Topics
R.K. Bansal (Numerical point of view), Frank M.White (For understanding)	Fluid Mechanics
Cengel (For understanding concept)	Heat Transfer
P.K.Nag	Thermodynamics
Swadesh Singh	Production Engineering
S.S. Ratan	Theory of Machine (TOM)

Civil Engineering (CE)

Name of the Book	Name of the Author
Highway engineering	Khanna and Justo
Soil mechanics and foundation engineering	Gopal and Ranjan
Environment 1 and 2	S K Garg
Open channel flow and engineering hydrology	K Subramanya
Fluid mechanics	R K Bansal
Steel	Bhavikatti
RCC	Pillai and Menon

Geology and Geophysics (GG)

Name of the Book	Name of the Author
Complete Master Guide GATE	Amresh Singh
Geophysics	Telford

Production and Industrial (PI)

Name of the Book	Name of the Author
Thermodynamics	P.K Nag
Heat Transfer	Made Easy Class Notes
Production	S K Mondal Notes Swadesh Sing
Material Science	Made Easy Class Notes & Swadesh Singh
Fluid Mechanics and Machinery	Modi & Seth
Machine Design	VB Bhandari
Strength of Material	Sadhu Singh
Refrigeration	Made Easy Class Notes
IC engine	Mathur Sharma
Theory of Machine	SS Ratan