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

1) Mock tests.
-> This should be started 1 month before the exam. Mock tests are very important to analyze how you are performing with respect to time, tension etc. Make sure to do create an exam environment, set time, isolate yourself from day to day disturbances, and take the exam. You can find mock paper @GateForum.com. Analyze your answers with the key, collect all the questions you have answered wrongly, classify them to following categories

1. Don't have a clue of the question.
2. I have read something like this, but not sure what is the answer.
3. I have read this kind of question, but forgot who to do it due to tension.
   
4. Solved the problem, but wrong answer as i have missed some parameters in the question.
5. Solved the problem, marked it wrongly.
6. Out of syllabus/wrong key/partial question (Ignore these questions)
   

Now out of above 4 should be fixed by reading the question completely before jumping to answer it. 5 can be fixed by cross checking every answer if that is the one i want to mark(Question number as well as the choice). (Clarification: Assume it take extra 5 on avg seconds per question, 72*5 = 7 mins out of whole time, which is not very bad if you can save 5-6 questions that come into this category).

For 1,2,3 the reason for not answering is that you are not very confident on those topics, divides all the questions in this bucket into various sub topics. Once you are done with this you, I will bet that you will be surprised to see the wrongly answered questions will go to well defined subtopics in some or the other subjects. Bingo!! You found what need to do now i guess, prepare these topics and Repeat the same with few more mock tests.

2) Last minute preparation.
On the day just before just browse important formulas, constants, TODO stuff, Do a mock in the afternoon, analyze again, ideally if you have done the mock tests prep as i have mentioned in the last question, you will get good score and feel lot confident in the previous night, and Next day is the day you come out the examination center and shout i have made it. Hurray......

All the best for all the Gate Aspirants.......

Satya