First of all, accept my apologies for not being active since last few months. I can defend it though, as being and surviving at IISc is not everyone’s cup of tea, that too a strong ginger tea.
Okay, so lets move on now to some real stuff. Yes, GATE is on the gate, knocking hard, might be disturbing many of you these days. Some of you might be feeling confident enough to crack it, some of you might be feeling nervous too, some would be overthinking and some might be there for sure, who are not thinking at all. Nope, not you, dont get tensed, I am not talking about you, you did well throughout the year, yes you.. so feel confident now, because its time to feel so.
Moreover, many of you have asked some very common set of questions about how to behave in these few last days before GATE. In next few paragraphs I would be trying to provide a very standard way to live in these days as well as how to write your main paper. So be patient and read thoroughly, it will definitely give you some new light for sure.
1: Develop and follow a routine.
A daily based routine is a must to have. It will fill you with a positive energy, if not then it wont be negative at least. Around a fortnight is remaining for GATE. If you start following a routine like, wake up at around 6 AM, have a small walk followed by a healthy breakfast, not only it will help you to develop good healthy habits, it will also help you in GATE. If your paper is in Morning (that does not imply that this is not applicable on those with Afternoon session) and you think that for just that one day you will wake up at 4 AM and do everything efficiently as never before, then my friend you are not a friend of yourself. You are a killer. You are going to kill your own day for which you struggled almost one year. So leave this pathetic idea and start sleeping and waking up at some moderate time daily for next 15 days. This daily early sleeping and waking up will help you to be at your best at the final day. Sudden change in your routine is only going too make you less efficient, which means you might become a very easy target of very old enemy of yours, which you name as “SILLY MISTAKES”. Being the “actual you” is far better than being the “extraordinary you”.
2: Start revising, but a smarter way.
Its the time of revision. So revise everything which you read throughout the year. Your referred books, your short notes, your very short notes everything should be covered at least once before main exam this fortnight.
Along with having a good and flexible schedule divide your day such that you may cover one subject in a day along with one Mock Test (if joined some test series) or one previous year GATE paper (or both if you can manage) and analyze your performance in that paper. Try to commit no mistakes in the subject you read that day. See the solutions of paper where you made it wrong and update your knowledge if needed.
It may go on for next 10 days. And you may feel actually confident going this way.
3: Last 4 to 5 days.
You may either feel relaxed and directly go to final day or you may keep on studying till the exam day. First one is better as it will not going to hurt you mental peace which I think may play the role of the strongest weapon from your side in Exam. Though you may write your Mock Tests as per your convenience. Also, the new concepts which you might be coming in contact with these days will not be as helpful as what you studied earlier. Its reasonable too. Whatever you have learned so far is somehow installed in your brain machinery and your brain is used to these concepts. It can access those concepts efficiently in any situation regardless your consciousness or subconsciousness. But whatever you might be reading in these last days is mostly temporary and volatile and will leave you confused when needed, if the situation occurs.
4: The Convergence Day.
Yes, now this is time. Its your day to write your own fate. So use better ink and nice handwriting.. ( haan maaloom hai…gandaa vala tha yeh.. 😀 )
Here are some steps which I recommended to many of my friends and I guess it worked for all of them. Divide your time of 3 hours in 4 slots, as follows:
(a) For first 20 minutes, try to solve the aptitude problems.
(b) For next 90 minutes try to solve as many 2- marked questions as you can without sacrificing the efficiency of your efforts.
(c) For next 50 minutes try to solve 1 mark questions.
(d) You still have extra 20 minutes. Use this slot to analyze your paper. Go to each bookmarked question and try to sole it. If it think it may take more than 5 minutes leave it asap and shift to next one.
Some Tips for your Paper:
(1) Do bring water bottle with you, Glucose water will be better. If not possible take a cold drink and yes 2 chocolates should be there with you for sugar. As you might have idea that your brain burns glucose for working properly. So let it have enough glucose.
(2) Do not get involved in one question for more than five minutes. Doing this will not only consume your this 5 minutes but your next few minutes might also be wasted as its a common tendency of many students,i.e. many when do not succeed to solve a question which has consumed a lot of time, they start doing problems faster to compensate this time loss, which is not worth to do. This makes them suffer later. Better be steady.
(3) Leave as fast as you can. Yes I said “Leave a question as fast as you can, if you feel that this is time consuming or you are not confident in this question or that seems an NP Hard problem to you in exam hall”. Whatever it is, just leave it. This will speed your performance up and you may be able to go over each question in the paper, which is a great thing to earn in a paper like GATE. Mark all those questions before leaving and come back again to them when you have solved all solvable problems in that last 20 minutes slot. If you leave such problems moderately, you may also extend this time slot to 30 minutes, another achievement.
(4) Do not mark any objective question based on guess/tukkaas. This will definitely make you repent. Even if you think that you are good in guessing, I would have to tell you, you have selected wrong exam. GATE organizers have special treatment for “tukka-raams“. So better not to do such things.
(5) As I have already mentioned in one of my earlier posts, “Do not fight with GATE questions”. Those are there to help you. So use them to get your path clear and do not fight with them. Every GATE paper has a rough weightage like 40-40-20. First 40% are for all easy questions, second 40% are constituted by average and almost average kind of questions and last 20% are there for some really hard-core type of questions. Your job is to recognize which question belongs to first 2 classes and solve them accordingly and leave such hard problems and if you get some time, go and solve them in the last slot.
I hope this will be helpful.
Sooner I will be back with another non-informative stuffs like these 😛
Gateetude 