Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering

Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is an all India examination that primarily tests the comprehensive understanding of various undergraduate subjects in Engineering and Technology. GATE is conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science and seven IIT's (IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Guwahati, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras and IIT Roorkee) on behalf of the National Coordination Board – GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. The GATE Score of a candidate reflects the relative performance level of a candidate. The score is used for admissions to various post-graduate programmes (e.g. M.E., M.Tech, direct Ph.D.) in Indian higher education institutes with financial assistance provided by MHRD and other Government agencies. The score may also be used by Public sector units for employment screening purposes.

Financial Assistance

A valid GATE score is essential for obtaining a financial assistance during Masters programmes and in some cases during direct Doctoral programmes in Engineering/Technology/Architecture, and Doctoral programs in relevant branches of Science in an Institution supported by the MHRD or other Government organizations. To avail the financial assistance (scholarship), the candidate must first secure admission to a programme in these Institutes, by a procedure that could be different for each institute. Qualification in GATE is also a minimum requirement to apply for various fellowships awarded by many Government organizations.

However, candidates with a Master’s degree in Engineering/Technology/Architecture may seek admission to relevant Doctoral programmes with scholarship/assistantship without appearing in the GATE examination.

Eligibility

The following categories of candidates are eligible to appear in GATE:

• Bachelor degree holders in Engineering/ Technology/ Architecture (4 years after 10+2)/post Bsc/post diploma

Master of Computer application and those who are in the final year of such programmes.

• Master degree holders in any branch of Science/ Mathematics/ Statistics/ Computer Applications or equivalent and those who are in the final year . pre-final year students are not eligible

Gate Papers

GATE will be conducted in the following subjects. Candidates can select any one subject.

GATE Paper	Code	GATE Paper	Code
Aerospace Engineering	AE	Instrumentation Engineering	IN
Agricultural Engineering	AG	Mathematics	MA
Architecture and Planning	AR	Mechanical Engineering	ME
Biotechnology	BT	Mining Engineering	MN
Civil Engineering	CE	Metallurgical Engineering	MT
Chemical Engineering	CH	Physics	PH
Computer Science and Information Technology	CS	Production and Industrial Engineering	PI
Chemistry	CY	Textile Engineering and Fibre Science	TF
Electronics and Communication Engineering	EC	Engineering Sciences	XE*
Electrical Engineering	EE	Life Sciences	XL**
Geology and Geophysics	GG

XE* Paper Section	Code	XL** Paper Section	Code
Engineering Mathematics (Compulsory)	A	Chemistry (Compulsory)	H
Fluid Mechanics	B	Biochemistry	I
Materials Science	C	Botany	J
Solid Mechanics	D	Microbiology	K
Thermodynamics	E	Zoology	L
hhhPolymer Science and Engineering	F	Food Technology	M
Food Technology	G

Examination

The examination is of three hour duration with patterns and syllabus varying from paper to paper. The exam is conducted in two modes - offline and online.

Online Examination

A computer based test (CBT) where the candidate will use a computer mouse to choose a correct answer or enter a numerical answer via a virtual keypad. Online exam is conducted usually in mid January.

GATE Paper Codes

AR, CE, GG, MA, MT, PH, TF, AE, AG, BT, CH, CY, MN, XE and XL

Offline Examination

A paper based examination where the candidate will mark the correct answer out of four options in an Optical Response Sheet (ORS) by darkening the appropriate bubble with a pen. Offline exam is conducted on second Sunday of February every year.

GATE Paper Codes

CS, ME, PI, EC, EE and IN

Result

GATE Results are usually declared on 15th march, a little over one month after the exam. The candidate may view total marks scored, GATE Score, all India Rank and the cut off marks for various categories in the candidate's paper. GATE Score is valid for TWO YEARS from the date of announcement of the results. GATE Score card will be issued to all qualified candidates.

GATE Score

After the evaluation of the answers, the raw marks obtained by a candidate will be converted to a normalized GATE Score. From 2013, the GATE score is computed by a new formula.
The GATE Score of a candidate is computed from: $S=S_{q}+(S_{t}-S_{q}){\frac {M-M_{q}}{M_{t}-M_{q}}}$
where,

S = GATE Score (normalised) of a candidate,

M = Marks obtained by a candidate in a paper,

M_q = Qualifying marks for general category candidates in the paper,

M_t = Average Marks of top 0.1% or 10 (which ever is higher) of candidates in the paper,

S_t = GATE Score assigned to M_t (around 900), and

S_q = GATE Score assigned to M_q (around 300).

M_q is usually 25 marks (out of 100) or μ+σ, whichever is higher. Here μ is the mean of marks in a paper and σ is the standard deviation.

GATE score remains valid for up to two year from the date of issue.

Old formula:
Till GATE 2012 the score was calculated using the formula: GATE score = $10(a_{g}+s_{g}{\frac {m-a}{S}})$

Where

m = marks obtained by the candidate.

a = average of marks of all candidates who appeared in the paper mentioned on this scorecard in GATE for that year

S = standard deviation of marks of all candidates who appeared in the paper mentioned on this scorecard in GATE for that year

a_g= global average of marks of all candidates who appeared across all papers and years

s_g= global standard deviation of marks of all candidates who appeared across all papers and years

Toughness of GATE Exam

GATE Papers, for long, have been known to test the Engineering basics in a smart way. Complaints of "lengthy" problems have been rare. But the task of mastering an entire course of Engineering (30 plus subjects) for a three hour test, itself gives the test a certain level of toughness. In GATE 2012, only 14% of all candidates qualified.

Qualifying Marks

The rules for qualifying scores have varied from year to year. In general the qualifying score is the average of marks scored by all individual candidates with negative marks counted as zero. If this average is less than 25, then 25 is considered the qualifying mark.

Admission to Post-Graduate programmes

Unlike undergraduate admissions in India, candidates must apply individually to each institute after the institute has published its MTech notification (published usually in march itself). There is no separate counselling held.

Some institutions specify GATE qualification as mandatory even for admission of self-financing students to postgraduate programmes. GATE qualified candidates are also eligible for the award of Junior Research Fellowship in CSIR Laboratories and CSIR sponsored projects. Top rank holders in some GATE papers are entitled to apply for “Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Fellowship” awarded by CSIR. Some government organizations prescribe GATE qualification as a requirement for applying to the post of a Scientist/ Engineer.

In recent years, various academicians have recognized GATE as being one of the toughest exams in its category. Moreover it has strikingly similar toughness like Joint Entrance Examination held for students entering IIT for undergraduate engineering courses. Many universities like National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and some technical universities in Germany, do identify GATE score card as a parameter for judging the quality of the candidates for admission into their Masters and PhD Programmes.

Some prestigious Management Institutes Like NITIE, Mumbai offers Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Engineering on the basis of GATE score

Most Indian institutes do not specify cut-off marks for previous years. So there is a general confusion in terms of selecting institutes and specializations. But in the recent years IIT Kharagpur and IIT Guwahati have been specifying last year cut-off mark list. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi has a very detailed website on Post Graduate (PG) activities and admissions where students can find the relevant information on cut-off marks etc. Typically the Indian Institute of Science and Indian Institutes of Technology are the most selective followed by National Institutes of Technology and others. Also there are some state universities in India, whose standards and facilities are very much comparable to top IITs and NITs. Some of them are Bengal Engineering and Science University (recently converted to IIEST), Jadavpur University, Delhi Technological University, CUSAT, Andhra University College of Engineering, Osmania University etc. Even within the top institutes, the selection criteria varies widely across departments and programs depending on expertise areas.

Changes in recent years

2009

• The IT and CS papers had been merged and there was no separate IT paper.
• The GATE score was valid only for one year but later the GATE committee made it valid for two years in 2010.

2010

• Pharmacy was no longer on the GATE subject papers list, with GPAT as the replacement. Also, the Biotechnology section of the XL GATE paper had been removed and replaced by a separate Biotechnology paper (paper code BT).
• An additional section of General Aptitude was introduced in GATE. A total of ten questions carrying 15 marks makes up this last section of GATE.

2011

• Based on a trouble-free pilot project in 2010, four of the GATE papers in GATE 2011 were run using computer based online mode. The four online papers for 2011 are Aerospace Engineering (paper code AE), Geology and Geophysics (paper code GG), Mining Engineering (paper code MN) and Textile Engineering (paper code TF) and Fiber Science.
• GATE was held in morning (9-12) session for some papers and afternoon (2-5) session for others. Also, the computer based tests was held on a different date.

2012

• Only final year students and passout students were eligible to write GATE exam.
• The application process was made completely online, candidates could view their responses of the ORS and also GATE Office released official solutions for GATE papers.

2013

• Female candidates are exempted from paying the application fee.
• Candidates are required to upload scanned copy of Photograph and Signature.
• The Application fee was increased from ₹1,000 to ₹1,200.

Number of students appearing for the examination

The number of candidates appearing in GATE is increasing every year.

Year	Number of Students
2013	1200738
2012	771349
2011	552530
2010	414093

Recruitment through GATE

PSUs in India, for long, have had troubles conducting their recruitment processes with more than 100,000 students giving the exams for less than 1000 jobs (A selection rate of less than 1%). After sensing the exponential rise in the number of engineering students in India who wish to "land" a PSU job, the PSUs have decided that GATE score shall be the primary criteria for initial shortlisting. This change was the primary cause for the rapid increase in applicants for GATE 2012.

IOCL was the first PSU which successfully tested out this system and was followed, two years later by NTPC, BHEL, BEL & Powergrid.

Usually these companies release their recruitment notifications right after GATE notification, indicating that candidates have to take GATE to be considered for a job in their organizations.

Year and Organizing Institute

Each GATE exam is conducted by any one of the IITs. GATE Coaching institutes often make speculations regarding the topics to focus upon depending upon the IIT that is setting the question.

Year	Organizing Institute
GATE 2013	IIT Bombay
GATE 2012	IIT Delhi
GATE 2011	IIT Madras
GATE 2010	IIT Guwahati
GATE 2009	IIT Roorkee
GATE 2008	IISc Bangalore
GATE 2007	IIT Kanpur
GATE 2006	IIT Kharagpur
GATE 2005	IIT Bombay
GATE 2004	IIT Delhi
GATE 2003	IIT Madras
GATE 2002	IISc Banglore
GATE 2001	IIT Kanpur
GATE 2000	IIT Kharagpur
GATE 1999	IIT Bombay
GATE 1998	IIT Delhi
GATE 1997	IIT Madras
GATE 1996	IISc Banglore
GATE 1995	IIT Kanpur
GATE 1994	IIT Kharagpur
GATE 1993	IIT Bombay
GATE 1992	IIT Delhi
GATE 1991	IIT Madras
GATE 1990	IISc Banglore
GATE 1989	IIT Kanpur
GATE 1988	IIT Kharagpur
GATE 1987	IIT Bombay
GATE 1988	IIT Delhi
GATE 1987	IIT Madras
GATE 1986	IISc Banglore

External links

• GATE 2013 site at IIT Bombay, organizing GATE 2013
• GATE 2012 site at IIT Delhi, organizing GATE 2012