GATE 2021 preparation tips: The time left before the GATE exam can be effectively used to revise core engineering concepts and important formulas to save the marks lost in silly mistakes
GATE 2021 preparation tips: The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE 2021) is undeniably the most sought after PG engineering entrance exam in the country. It serves as a gateway to admission in Master’s programmes. In addition, many PSUs conduct recruitment of graduate engineers on the basis of GATE score. IIT Bombay has already announced the branch-wise exam dates of GATE and the examination is scheduled to be held in less than two months’ time, that is, in February. It is high time that GATE aspirants utilise the available time to secure their best score which brings us to pen down some important last month preparation strategies in this read.
As the conducting institute of the 2021 exam, IIT Bombay will release the GATE admit card on January 8 at gate.iitb.ac.in. The examination is scheduled to be held from February 5 to 7 and 12 to 14. Although the GATE 2021 syllabus has changed from the last time, the common section of General Aptitude is still there for all papers in addition to the subject wise syllabus corresponding to different subjects. A simple yet effective revision strategy is solving workbooks for both GA and subject-specific questions. A significant portion of marks is given away in silly mistakes. Candidates must take care of this through extensive practice in these last few days before the exam.
Blindly solving mock tests and doing workbook exercises would not however help much, if a candidate has confusion in the understanding of basic concepts. This is particularly relevant for the subject-specific questions that are related to core engineering concepts and theories. We recommend candidates revisit core theories and concepts from the engineering subjects at least once. A useful shortcut is to refer to short-notes if the candidate has already prepared them earlier. In other cases, ready to use notes for GATE can always be found over the internet.
Candidates who took the GATE exam earlier are of the opinion that the aptitude and mathematics part pose a tremendous opportunity to push the score toward the top of the GATE result. However, one must be fluent with the techniques implemented to solve typical aptitude questions as well as the mathematical functions, equations, relations and formula to solve quantitative aptitude questions. In order to remain competitive, candidates have to therefore be able to swiftly recall such formulas or methods for typical problem-solving. If needed, make a chart of important formulas, equations and relations and refer to these in-between study hours For those who are appearing in the GATE exam for the first time, it might be confusing as to what exact type of questions is asked in the exam. For instance, questions with confusing alternatives such as “not true” or “not false” are often encountered in such exams. The way out is to refer to the previous years’ papers of the exam. The correct answers are always available in the GATE answer keys so use the papers and the keys conjointly and get acquainted with the paper even before appearing in the exam.
Lastly, we have an important trick that is bound to be helpful for aspirants this year. Refer to previous papers and the syllabus of the GATE exam. Identify at least 20-25 topics that have been common in the question papers of the last five years’ GATE exam. Note these down and highlight these topics in the syllabus, short notes, practice books, mock tests and every other learning material handy. Study these topics extensively and there is a good chance to get a fair share of the common questions in GATE.
Source: Indian Express, 23/12/20
