Today I am going to tell you how you can improve your speed and reduce the number of errors in the exam. My experience is that if you can just reduce the number of errors, you will end up with a very good rank. The key idea here is time management, which will help you with this. You might be thinking that 3 hours time is more than enough for solving the GATE exam paper and you don’t need to worry about time. It’s true that 3 hours is more than enough for solving the GATE exam paper, but it’s true only if you do good time management. I suggest that the day before your exam think about the strategy, you are going to use in the exam, to get better result. If you want, you can also consider the strategy used by me in GATE Computer Science 2012 exam. But I would suggest that you make your own strategy, because you know yourself better.
My strategy was to solve the GATE exam paper in the following ordered steps:
- Try to solve one marks technical questions as much as possible
- Try to solve maximum no. of aptitude questions (including one marks and two marks questions)
- Now solve all the 2 marks technical questions
- After this recheck all of the questions you have solved
- Try to solve those questions, you could not solve earlier
- Again recheck your complete exam paper
- Fill the bubbles
While following this order, keep time management in your mind. First of all think that you have to solve this exam within 2 hours and 30 minutes. Then subdivide this 2 hours and 30 minutes time in above 7 steps and try to complete each step within this time limit. Many times it happens that when we get stuck on a tricky question, we waste a lot of time on that question and later we find that we have no time left to complete the exam. For this I suggest that you subdivide this 2 hours and 30 minutes time in the following way:
- Complete the first step with first 15 minutes and don’t give a question more than 1 minute. If some question is taking more than 1 minute, then leave it for step 5
- Complete the second step within 10 minutes and don’t waste much time on this part. If some question is left, try it again in step 5
- Complete the third step within 45 minutes and don’t give a question more than 2 minutes. If some question is taking more than 2 minutes, then leave it for step 5
- Complete the fourth step withing 20 minutes. This is the step where you will find your silly mistakes. If you take this step seriously, you can reduce the number of errors
- Complete the fifth step within 25 minutes. This is the step where you will be improving your ranking
- Complete the sixth step withing 20 minutes. In this step, you will also have chance to find the mistakes, you could not find in step 4
- Now you have 15 minutes left to fill the bubbles and you are done 🙂
Now you might be thinking that where to use the 30 minutes left, since you have done everything within 2 hours 30 minutes. The answer is that it’s difficult to complete each step within strict time limit. So it’s better if you have some extra time, which you can utilize based on your need. One last and very important point that I would like to make is: start practicing it from today while solving the previous year GATE question papers as suggested by me in my last blog post. Otherwise it would be difficult for you to do the time management in the exam.
Comments 32
thanks a ton… 1 que: can a subject be prepared with the time left(4-5days)?? side by side practicing for the questions. How should i manage the time then??
i am left with only 5 days… i havent prepared for all 100 marks… but i have prepared for around 75-80 marks based on the analysis of the weightages of the subjects…. is it gud enough to revise the same many times instead of gng for rest of 20 marks or so in the remaining days??
Author
Dont waste time now in studying further. Just revise whatever you have studied.
+1
Author
@deb, Yes it can be done if you have some time left after practicing questions and revising the subjects. You can do this for subjects like software engineering and general aptitude.
i want to focus on only questions nw, as i hv enough no of quality questions… lik old paprs(sugstd by u), gatforum tst series, gk publicsns buks nd cds nd othr buks wth sid by sid apti… bt i m nt so confidnt abt it… shud i do it….leaving d therticl studies….?????
Author
Please read this blog post by me:
http://www.ankurgupta.net/tip-2-solve-only-previous-year-gate-question-papers/
I hope it will clear all your doubts.
yups… really hlpful fr me… thnks a lot…
unsatisfying nd bad prformnce in gateforum test series nd thinking no. of days left is really breaking my confidnce, need ur hlp…
Sir plz suggest me about the type of aptitude questions they are asking.As calculator is allowed, I don’t think that they will be giving some calculation based questions such as those time & work,train,si,ci. Are they much focussed towards reasoning type questions such as sitting arrangement,blood relations,etc.?
Author
I will suggest that don’t care about aptitude questions. Aptitude questions in GATE check your aptitude that you possess. Therefore either you will be able to solve those questions easily or you will not be able to solve them at all. So better don’t waste time on that part.
sir u haven’t been doing good in gateforum test series! in my last 4 xams i have cum up with 400 to 800 rank(ups n downs)! n those papers were not dat difficult! wil i be able to cope up til gate exam? as the test series is having nearly 4000 students only, n gate is abt lac! m worried!
Author
You still have one month left. Give more time in solving GATE previous year papers. For your case, I would suggest that solve last 15 year papers at least 3 times.
thanx sir! n i’l call u in a day or two! i thnk talking wil relax me! n i need some advices! so..
i wanted 2 ask dat wat shud v focus on these last 25 days. i am in bit of mental tension regardin gate nd other things nd unable 2 focus…. how shud i increse my focus?? also wat is rank requird fr obc categry in iisc??
Author
I have already replied in my posts. Please read them.
hello sir,
would u lyk to tell me plzzz wt to do if m nt gud at maths.. all the other subjects are ok bt maths is really breaking my confidence..as it covers 15% of GATE.
Author
It depends on which book or other resource you are using to study. I had problem with probability and for that I found khan academy video lectures to be very useful. You can try nptel lecture videos for this.
Please provide me the notes for compiler design and operating system.Thanking u
Regards
Karthika
Author
I don’t have full notes for Compiler Design. Whatever I had, I have already provided on my site.
i have passed 2012 but started job after that and now i am thinking to go for gate and study mtech will this will affect my placement after mtech
of two year experience but gap in btech and mtech
Author
Gap does not matter. Prepare with job.
Thanks Sir
Really heads off to you first.
U have done a great job.
My doubts regarding exams are clear
Hi Sir, I had appeared for GATE 2013 and 2014 and got the rank 3740 and 1961 resp. But it was not enough to get selected for IITB. So I am again preparing for GATE 2015. But the problem is I’m working in Cognizant Company(IT) and I’m not getting enough time to prepare. Now I’m very confused how to tackle this. I am thinking to leave the job and start full time preparation. Am I thinking correct or please suggest some other solutions.
Hi Sir,
I am preparing for GATE 2015. I tried solving previous 25 years question papers of GATE. I was able to solve almost 90% of the questions by my own without taking others help. Now i started doing some online test series. But the strange thing is that i find the test very difficult in solving and the score which i am getting is very low. After writing the online test series my confidence level has drastically come down. I am really tensed. At this last moment i dont know what to do and am really worried whether i will get a good GATE score or not. Actually i was preparing well.
Can you pls suggest what was wrong with me and how can i improve myself at this last moment.
Regards,
Radhika
thats exactly happening with me.I am also really tensed and worried abt results First my score was good in online tests also but dont know how its coming down. please author suggest something as their is not much time we have. i did all the strategies u suggested…reply asap
Hi Radhika,
Dont worry. Actually, all the online Test series are made in that way so students findthem difficult.. and would think that we are much behind in preparation and we need special guidance and coaching for a good preparation.
As a result, most students lasts joining these institutes for GATE coaching..
So, If u are able to solve last 10years papers with atleast 85% scores..
This preparation is more than enough to score a very good rank
Just keep revising the formulaes and concepts….Don’t let ur mind forget any of them..Also, practice Mathematics & Aptitude well coz you can easily score a perfect score of 30 over there or about 28-30..
Best of Luck…
Hello Sir,
Heartly Congrats and Thanks for such blog…
i need your suggestion how to do subject preparation for GATE 2015.
sir do you have any other website with solved questions for civil engineering for atleast 10 years. Ill be grateful. Thank you
i am preparing for the gate 2015 we guyz are solving the previous years question and focusing on the logically question.
Sir.I am writing online mock test in previous year questionpaper.I am scoring very low marks in the test continuosly.How to rectify my mistake?
Thanks for sharing the blog. It’s very useful and informative. You also explained the topic very well.