GATE 2010 Syllabus and Pattern

GATE

Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE), administered by the IITs and IISc, is the qualifying test for admission to ME, M.Tech and MS courses in India. There are 21 different papers (one for each stream) in GATE including engineering streams such as ECE, CSE, EE and pure sciences such as Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. For each of the streams, the syllabus is different and therefore the question paper is different as well. The syllabus for engineering streams includes four years of engineering syllabus and general aptitude.

GATE Syllabus and Pattern

GATE is an objective type test with multiple choice questions with total time duration of 3 hours. There are 65 questions for a total of 100 marks. There is a 33 % negative marking for every wrong answer. The question wise distribution is as follows

– Q. 1 to Q. 25 : One mark Technical Questions
– Q. 26 to Q. 55 : Two mark Technical Questions
– Q. 56 to Q. 60 : One mark Aptitude Questions
– Q. 61 to Q. 65 : Two mark Aptitude Questions

The aptitude part of the syllabus in GATE has been added from GATE 2010 only. Till last year, the syllabus of GATE contained only technical aspects but from this year numerical and verbal aptitude questions have been added. In GATE 2010, there will be 10 aptitude questions carrying 15 marks out of total 100 marks. The verbal aptitude part includes questions on English grammar, sentence completion, verbal analogies, word groups, instructions, critical reasoning and verbal deduction. The numerical aptitude part includes questions on numerical computation, numerical estimation, numerical reasoning and data interpretation. It will be very important to prepare and do well in these aptitude questions because they can make a difference in qualifying in GATE or not.

GATE 2010

Apart from adding aptitude questions in the syllabus, GATE 2010 has some other important changes. The GATE 10 score will be valid for two years while the GATE 2009 score was valid only for one year. Due to the increase in validity to two years, third year engineering students can also take GATE and use the score obtained for applying for masters programs after one year. IIT Guwahati is the organizing institute for GATE 2010 while IIT Roorkee was the organizing institute for GATE 2009. Out of the 21 papers in GATE, 19 will be conducted in the paper based format. For the first time two papers - Textile Engineering & Fibre Science and Mining Engineering will have a computer based online test. These tests will be conducted at the IIT and IISc campuses one week before the date of other papers i.e. on 7th February, 2010. This is the first time that any paper of GATE is being conducted as computer based test and given the fact the CAT is also going to be conducted as a computer based test this year, it could be that IITs are experimenting with the online test format. Based on the success of this idea, they could make all streams computer based test next year.

GATE 2010 will be conducted on 14th February, 2010 and the results will be announced on 15th March, 2010. The application forms are available at specific bank counters from 22nd September to 28th October, 2009.
Students can apply for GATE online through the Internet or offline. The online application fee is Rs 800 while the offline application fee is Rs 1000 for general and OBC category candidates.