Students’ Speak: 15 points to balance work & GATE preparation

By: Kandarp Patel

By analysing and understanding the exam pattern well will make half of your work easy for GATE preparation. Because this is the time to work smartly and effectively for achieving something great.

Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is one of the most important exams for engineering aspirants. However, most of the aspirants appearing for this exam are mostly working. In this article, we will discuss how to manage a job as well as GATE exam preparation and score effectively. This article is based on the reviews of GATE toppers and experts who have personally experienced this situation and scored well, too. This article consists of various tips and strategies given by toppers and experts for achieving success in GATE while working full time.

Data show that almost half of GATE toppers were pursuing a full-time job and simultaneously preparing for the exam. So, it is not at all impossible to score best even if you are a working professional. However, the first requirement for this is that you need to have a proper strategy to balance both perfectly.

In this category, there would be two types of students:

1. Students who started preparing in the final year or 3^rd year of their college.
2. Students who just plan to start preparation after joining a job or while doing a job.

Before we go for some tips and strategies, it is important to know about the exam pattern. By analysing and understanding the exam pattern well will make half of your work easy for GATE preparation. Because this is the time to work smartly and effectively for achieving something great.

GATE Tips & Strategies

• Decide whether to do self-preparation or to join coaching classes (weekend batch) according to your capabilities and current standing in GATE.
• Write your detailed daily schedule which includes from your waking time till your sleeping time and also job schedule in between.
• Do proper study and analysis of your schedule and write the time in which you can do perfect study. This time should be at least 3-5 hours a day.
• Make a clear decision for studying before job time or after job time (which means early morning or late-night study) in which you are more convenient and comfortable with and in which you get continuous study time of at least three
• General advice would be to choose early morning study time due to various reasons like fresh environment, effective output and in night time some might get tired due to workload and sometimes extended timings of the job, it might get difficult to study at night time.
• Try to find extra time apart from study time from your daily routine in which you can do practise of what you have studied in the early morning or in some case previous night.
• Use standard books and materials advised by experts and toppers.
• Try to divide all the topics as strong and weak topics according to your command in that particular topic.
• Practice more questions about your strong topics or areas.
• Revise your strong topics effectively on a regular basis and try to make it strongest.
• Make a Handy Book containing each and every important formula for every topic for last-minute
• Try to solve previous year papers or give it as a mock (last 5-7 years).
• Try to attempt all NAT (Numerical Answer Type) questions because there is no negative marking in it.
• Try to find at least 5-7 hours for study on weekend days.

About The Author:

Kandarp Patel is a student at Nirma University, Ahemdabad, pursuing Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering (final year). He is also a campus representative with Shiksha.com since 2016.