Great Tips by Previous Gate Topper from IIT-B ANALYSIS OF PAPER First of all, go through all previous papers.

Especially, the papers of the year when organizing institute is same as that of GATE09. GATE08 was organized by IISc. The previous years when IISc was organizing institute were year 2002, 1996, and 1990. When I solved these papers, I found out that there are some concepts on which IISc was focusing more. E.g. In each of these papers there was question on:B/B+ tree,Newton-Raphson Method,More stress on CO and Digital,Mathematics is more inclined towards Calculus than Discrete MathsOn the contrary problems on Probability, Networks and Compilers were not much difficult.. If u solve GATE08 paper u ll find the same thing here also. So we can say that GATE paper is much predictive. so first task to do is go through all the papers (I think the organizing institute this time may be Madras and prev years when madras was organizing institute were 1991, 1997, 2003) and find out the similarities.stress on them.I m not saying to skip all other topicsbut practically its really difficult (not impossible) to focus on all the subjects.so, I just want to say, if u want to skip some topics dont skip the topics stressed by the organizing institute. Also dont underestimate the remaining topics . here comes my first mistakeI under-estimate]Probability and solved very simple problem wrongly .result was -2.5 marks . But warning is if u skip some topics u must be perfect in all the remaining topics. And the definition of perfect, here, is there must be only one person to solve particular problem on that topic before u.the paper setter!!!..no one else Now next point is,Every GATE paper contains three kinds of questions:1. problems on tricky conceptsif u know the concept, ur done2. Difficult problemsU ve to put ur brains to solve these problems3. Practically unsolvable problemsU may find totally unknown and new concepts which couldnt be solved in 3hrs time this typically includes problems on CO and probability. To crack the GATE u ve to solve correctly ALL the problems of first kind.for 2nd kind, the more the problem u solve, lesser the rank u ll get!!! Now while solving the paper, I solved it in 3 passes. 1. Solve all the problems that u can solve undoubtfullymeans answer only when ur200% sure about the ans .for this pass I ve given 2hrs during the paper which is quite sufficient 2. Check all the problemsRemember while checking have thorough checking.check whether u ve marked correct optioncheck question-to-ans correspondence is correctmany times it happens that we solve Q.30leave Q31 blank and after solving Q32 we mark option in front of Q31.here comes my another mistakeI havent checked three of questions for which I thought no checking is necessarybut I lost 7.5 marks.this pass may take 15-20 min3. after careful checking only turn towards problems for which u are doubt fulltry to rethink on these problemsu may solve 3-4 of them

I ld like to explain u how much imp ur hit ratio.in GATE08 I attempted 54 questionsout of which 14 are of 1 marks and 40 are of marksout of 14, 11 are correct and 3 came to be wrongand out of 4028 came to be correct and 12 came to be wrongso my score, I think is round about 60/150. Now if I ld ve attempted only 11 one marked questions and 28 2 marked questions.for which I was 200% surethen my score ld ve been 67/150.means surely I ld ve got rank

Continuing the discussion about marksI think, for easy paper(like GATE07) 75/150 = IITFor difficult paper(like GATE08) u can see even 60/150 is done!!! So in general attempt 50-60 questions with hit ratio >90% and ur through!!! Well,Now I ll come to preparation part of the GATE .

BOOKS and SUBJECT ANALYSIS Discrete Mathematics MOST IMP subject as far as CS is concerned First order logic: prepare it from Trembley-Manohar and solve exercise from Discrete Mathematics and Application by Kenneth Rosen. Easy topic. Once concept is clear marks are urs.Important rules of thumb are given in Kenneth Rosen Probability and Combinatorics:I skipped this part. But Kenneth Rosen again has variety of problems on this topic. Set Theory: Trembley-ManoharBoolean algebra,Groups, Lattice, Relations:Kenneth Rosen has good discussion on Relations and Lattice.Book by K.D.Joshi on Discrete Maths has good derivations regarding enumerating the relationsgo through it, it ll surely help to build up the ideasFor Boolean Algebra and Group Theory again book by Trembley-Manoher is good, but for exercises I used book by Ross(I dont remember the full name of authorsorry for that)Trembley-Manoher includes good theorems in Group Theory

Linear Algebra, Calculus and Numerical Methods: For these subjects I used the course books by local authors which we used for semester examsThere are some quickie methods to find out inverse of matrix, eigen values and eigen vectors, determinantunderstand those from Profs in ur college

Recurrence Relations:Kenneth Rosen includes some rules of thumb for Particular Solutions of Recurrence Relationsonce u got them solving problems on RR is work of few secodsParticularly for Recurrence Relations, try to find ans by eliminating wrong optionsi.e. if u know f(1)=a and f(0)=btry to put 1 and 0 in options and see where u get correct ans.believe me in most of cases u ll get quick and correct ans by this way. Graph Theory: MOST IMP topic for CSTry to go through all possible books and material for Graph Theory.Note down the general formulae/theorems given in booksread them frequentlyKenneth Rosen includes good discussion in most of the concepts of GT.Graph Theory by Douglas West is also gr8 book.

Theory of Computation Book byJohn C. MartinThis is gr8 for Regular Languages, Finite Automatatheory and problemsCohenThis includes variety of problems on every other concept of TOCtheory is also very perfect (as good as spoon feeding) especially for pumping lemma Peter LinzAgain good theory easy to understand.problems on Turing Machine are tricky Michel SipserThis book is good especially for Un-decidability, Recursive and RE languages, NP-completenessFor NP-completeness book on Algorithms by Sahani is also good I suggest u to read these books in following order1. Read concepts from Cohen.u also can refer Peter Linzsolve exercises2. Solve exercise from John Martin3. Read Michel Sipser for advanced concepts statutory warning: TOC book by Ullman is injurious to brain but do read this book oncethis contains, exclusively, concepts of Homomorphism, HALF of LANGUAGE etc

Digital Logic:Morris Manomorris manomorris mano!!!!!!!!There are ppts on the department website of IIT-D regardin this coursewhich contains good discussion on some concepts like Fault Detection and Hazards in CircuitsWalkerly is also good bookThere is also a book Fundamentals of Digital Circuits by A. Anand Kumar which includes thorough discussion on Number System(dont under-estimate this pointthere are many tricky concepts in it!!!)

Computer Organization and Architecture:

Book by Morris Mano(not the same as Digitalthere is separate book for CO)it contains good theory and problems for Addressing Modes, DMA and IOrefer latest edition coz previous editions doesnt include concepts of Register Window.so I could not attempt problem on it Book by J. P. Hays contains good discussion on Micro-programming and Hard-Wired Design, also it contains good formulae for PipeliningJ. P. Hays also contain thorough discussion on Floating Point number formats.Good and exclusive formulae for Secondary Storage Book by ZakyIt has good theory for PipeliningAlso thorough discussion in Cache memories. Dont skip any word and any problem written about cache in this book Algorithms Read each and every word written in book by Cormensolve every other excersies.this is enoughsolution manual is available over the internetsearch on esnips.com Also there is one book, I found on flazx.com, named Problems on Algorithmsthis book contains only problems no theory..but good bookBook by Sahani is also good IMP subject for CSGet perfection in:Master Theorem and Asymptotic notations Data Structure and ProgrammingFor programming u must be great in concepts of Pointers and Recursion. For tricky problems related with programming visit department websites of various foreign universities and solve the assignments given there For data structureBook by Alan Weiss is great and sufficient for theory.For problems on Data Structurenothing is sufficient.solve as many as u canTo understand various operations on various Trees and Heaps there are many Java Applets available over the internetthey will demonstrate it Compiler DesignUllmannothing else!!!For lexical analysis some problems are asked on C program like: a C program is given and we are asked to find out number of tokens generatedso to understand tokens in Cbook by Denis Ritchie is good Read each and every word given on Parsers in Ullmanthere are many tricks given to find out whether grammar is LL or LR or CLR or LALRstatutory warning: this book requires too much patience to understandMany students skip this subject but Ullman is best forParsers, Sattributed and L-attributed SDT, Scopes of variables, Passing of Parameters, Code Optimization (defn only)Prepare at least these points Operating Systems Book by Galvin is very good for conceptsModern Operating System by Andrew Tanenbaum is the best book for OS. It contains great number of problems. Also includes some of theory that is not included in Galvins book.Operating Systems by Stallings also contains tricky problemssoln manual is also available on esnips.comI also suggest Schaums Series (author: J. Archer Harris) book on operating systems for problems. It is a very good compilation of problems from Galvin, Tanenbaum and Stallings. Also soln are given.

While preparing prepare operating system along with CO. it will be helpful for Memory Management. statutory warning: while solving problems on OS keep ur head cooool and.recheck them thricebetter not to attempt problems on OS in doubtful situation Database For physical database organization (theory) and SQL, RA, TRCBook by Raghuramkrishnansoln manual is available For transaction management and Normalization Book by Korth soln manual is available For ER diagrams and problems on physical database organizationBook by Navathe.available on ebookee.com Once u finish reading topics in Korth and Raghuramkrishnan and ur concepts are clear, then onwards I suggest u to read and stick up with Navathe coz it contains lot of techniques and algorithms not given any where else Computer Networks For application layer protocolsComputer Networking A top down approach by Kurose and Ross available on flazx.comTCP/IP by Forouzan For Frame Formats, TCP and IP Header formatsTCP/IP by Forouzan Data Link Layer, Network Layer, Transport LayerComputer Networks by TanenbaumGo through all the exercises given in the booksoln manual is available on esnips.com .

Some Suggestions for Preparation/Study 1. Strictly use Reference books, dont rely on any class notes. 2. In first phase of ur study (in month of May-June) go through all GATE papers. Solve them by ur own. Once problem is solved try to find out similar problems from refernce books and solve them. This will fix up the concepts well. 3. Use department websites of various universities to get latest assignments. 4. plan ur schedule in such a way that u ll be able to finish up whole syllabus in month of Dec. from jan onwards try to solve papers. 5. keep ur feb first week for revision onlydont read any new concepts

( I tried to do calculus in month of Febi couldnt even solve simple problem on limitstotal time-waste) hope this was not too boring and will be helpful to all of u..