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How important is test series and what is the expected number of full length test should one give before final gate exam ?
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See test series are very important becoz it helps u
-In building question solving strategies

-Understanding some new concepts

-Time management(Very imp)

-Reducing silly mistakes and improving accuracy

-Many people don't have habit of sitting for 3 hr so it helps in that too and many more things...

Their is no particular number of test you should give before gate (more u give better it is unless u r scoring 100/100 in every tests) but the most imp thing is analysis of a test which includes re-solving the tests,analyzing the silly mistakes u made,learning new concepts(if any),and seeing if the strategy which u applied did worked for u or not...

I will share my experience Gate 2019(AIR-25) .I started giving full length tests from mid of oct 2018 and in january i gave 1-2 tests everyday with revision of those topics which i was not able to solve in any tests.It worked for me and gave me enough confidence to face gate exam with proper confidence and concentration.

FOR ANY DOUBTS COMMENT BELOW,

All the best.
1 vote
1 vote

Hi, I have scored AIR: 372 in GATE 2020. My previous ranks are 5793 and 7613 in GATE 2018 and 2019 respectively. Here I will be telling you my personal experience with the test series and how I used them. If you like to read about my complete preparation strategy, you can read it from here 

 

Previous Year GATE.

If you are preparing full time, You must plan to take at least thrice the previous Year GATE papers keeping the latest 5 aside. (Suppose You are appearing for GATE 2021 so you must not see papers from 2017 to 2020. i.e 2 papers from 2017 and each from 2018, 2019, 2020.) These papers are real life-saving in terms of standard. In terms of standard, you can anytime trust GATE. When I asked you to take test thrice I did not mean to take the test in a short span or without improving.

The way which I followed is. (Let's name the attempt of PYQ as passes.)

First after completing around 60% of my syllabus in September. end. I started the full-length mock test of the PYQ. Just to check where I currently stand. Once you complete a 60% syllabus well enough then you can easily score marks around 50+ in pyq. I use to take each FLT in a week (generally on a weekend at the time of the actual GATE).

You should analyze your attempt strategy. Try and test which section suits you best first. Which section require more attention from you. Which section you feel hard. In which sequence you are comfortable taking the exam and all that. (I have written the strategy in FAQ 5 answer what suited me). The important focus for you in this first pass should be to explore your attributes regarding the exam and try to score 50+ in each test.

After taking each test you should analyze the attempted question mistakes and the question which you could have solved (provided that you are already done with that topic) but did not solved it because you thought the questions are too hard. Though these questions are hard, you need to understand that these are the question which will set the difference between a Topper and an average student. So take your time to solve those questions without looking into the solution. You can refer to the solution only after giving a series of serious attempts. Once you will see them you can realize that these questions are actually hollow in terms of steps. These are just intimidating to not get solved but if you read the question twice or thrice and know the right basic concepts these can be easily solved. Meanwhile, since you are taking only 1 exam a week you will have plenty of time to cover the rest of the syllabus in parallel.

Now once you think you are almost done with the syllabus 80-85% and completed all the tests of PYQ in the first pass then you can start with the second pass. In this pass, you should take the test only for 150 min and not 180 min. But be sure that you don't solve the question based on memory. The focus of this pass is to test your attempt strategy which you have framed in pass 1 and to test your knowledge once again. In this pass, you should assure that you don't miss the easy question coming from the topic you already covered. It's okay if you are still struggling with the hard ones but do solve them after the exam. The analysis of these tests will be that the mistakes you have committed, the easy and hard question which are in your syllabus reach. and scoring around 70+ this time. After each test, you could just see the question and solution directly of those question which you have not covered till now in term of the syllabus. Sometimes there is a question that does not even require much depth study of topics as for example CO register counting...You should analyze each question this time very carefully as you can use the knowledge in the upcoming tests. Since it will already be December till you complete this pass. You can take the saved exam i.e 2017 to 2020 and see your status of preparation. The marks which you will be getting in these 5 papers will actually reflect in your actual marks unless you do push yourself more in the last 2 months.

In the third pass, you can take revision and solve the paper in Speed Gate manner which is taking the exam in just 120 min. This time also you should include those 5 papers as well. And since you have seen these questions enough so you should Ideally get around 80+ in these tests. 

 

You should plan yourself, about the time you are going to allocate to each section according to the time for each test. The reason of reducing time is to teach yourself the art of leaving some questions which are traps and also prepare you for the worst-case scenario. 

 

Coaching Institute Test Series.

I only took GATEBOOK test series so cannot comment on other test series. GateBook Test series helped me to keep track of the syllabus w.r.t time, as they had a schedule for each test to be released and they had prize money for the top 10 students. Though they have a lot to improve on their test series in terms of the question and interface as well it will motivate you to perform well. Don't get demotivated if you score low. Sometimes questions are out of GATE standards and not framed well. But you can also find some good questions which you will have to use, to fill your knowledge gap in that topic. Altogether do not take your marks of these topic test series very seriously while you are in the middle of covering subjects. 

I took the TIFR exam in December Since it is also a standard national level exam so you can expect good question and its syllabus is also similar to GATE so you can also take it. TIFR and GATE both are designed by TCS so you can expect a similar interface feature in this exam. You can also notice and note down the interface and test each of them while taking the test.

I also took 2 CBT test 1 from ME and the other one from ACE. The idea of taking CBT is that they help you to practice with the GATE level pressure. ACE even provides the same exam center as GATE so you can plan your travel and route as well in the practice of the original exam. The Ace paper was somewhat easy and ME 1st CBT was hard. But there will still be 2 weeks' time after you take these CBT and also can improve in this period by using stats from these tests. You should take the results seriously If you did whatever you could but also not too seriously because it may happen that you got really tensed in those exams and not performed as expected so you should learn from your mistakes. This will reflect your overall response to the competition.

As you can see the Guy has scored AIR: 2 but in GATE 2020 he got AIR: 6 and Hitesh who topped GATE 2020 was AIR: 3 in this CBT. I scored around 38.3 marks and got some 346 rank. so I had a lot to learn after that regarding handling the pressure and solving the less time-consuming questions first. There are various examples of people who performed well in CBT and also in GATE 2020 but there are also examples who did not do very well in cbt but did just fine in GATE. So it is up to the individual and it's preparation effort how they deal with it. So please just focus on yourself and put extra effort in both the cases after cbt and try to reduce the errors whatever you committed in these. I had got 54.66 marks in ACE and got 189 rank in it. So believe in yourself and if you still had doubt solve the pyq test once again in Speed gate and solve each sum honestly so that you can assure yourself that you will be going to just fine.

 

I hope you do well. All the best :)

 

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