What it is to crack GATE Exam? Part - II.

1) How much time i should dedicate in-order to crack GATE?

-> GATE syllabus covers all the subjects one have learnt during the 4 years of engineering(Includes only revelant subjects to the specific department that are covered in 1st year though). So if you are conceptual learner(kind 4) as described in the previous post, few months of serious preperation before the exam is enough for cracking Gate Exam. For others it varies according to how far are away from the being conceptual learner.

2)Is Coaching Classes necessary for Gate Exam?

->Most of the people think, coaching classes are necessary to crack Gate exam, but its not true. Only thing coaching classes help is they consolidate all the information one required for cracking the Gate exam and mock tests, but just reading the formula's and solving the problems at the end of the chapters will have no effect until you understand the solutions for the problems and their application. As Gate questions won't get repeated, only way is to understand the concepts for all the subjects. Gate has different weightages for different subjects, so you have to check it before starting your preparation for Gate exam. 3-4 mock tests in the last week before the Gate exam, will surely help in boosting your score.

3) What is the rough rank i should get in order to get a good college?

-> This information is regarding CS, If you are planning to get into IISC or IIT's you need a rank in the range 1-300 depending on percentage of people appeared for Gate really interested in doing higher studies. Getting into an IIT and completing your Masters with good percentage will assure you a job with a salary of 7-15 lpa(Lakhs per annum). Next best are NIT's, a rank around 400-700 will assure seat in one of the top NIT's. The job prospects in hear depends on the NIT though, You can expect salary range of 4-10 lpa(depending on the institute). For more information about the cut off, previous years trends, etc visit one of the following websites.

• gateforum.com
• onestopgate.com
• gatementor.com

4) How much impact does getting into nice college on my career?

-> As you can clearly guess answer to this question is yes it has impact and it varies from IIT's to NIT's, but it all depends on you. If you have chosen a good research project, and professor who can guide you well, IIT or NIT or IISC doesn't matter much. But the chances for doing so is much easier in IIT's than in NIT's. You can find the ranking of various college using Google Search. An old ranking order can be found here.

- Satyanarayana Manyam.