How to prepare for GATE 2019 Mechanical Engineering Exam?
The graduate Aptitude test in Engineering (GATE) is one of the most popular exams amongst all technical background students B-Tech, BE, BSc etc because it gives an opportunity to join Mtech, PhD admissions in various IITs, Nits and several other 1st tier engineering colleges in India and abroad. GATE 2019 is also an opportunity to secure a central Govt job in PSUs. A total of 7,81,854 candidates appeared for GATE 2018 in which 2.9 lakhs candidates appeared for mechanical engineering paper while only 39K candidates qualified the exams. GATE 2019 is organized by IIT madras and competition is increasing year by year. Hence it is utmost important to build strategies and work upon it with discipline and dedication. The exam dates of GATE 2019 has been officially announced. It is scheduled to be held in Feb 2019. Time of around 6-8 months is sufficient to crack GATE exam.
Below we have shared some important tips which will help students preparing for the Mechanical Engineering exam of GATE 2019 to crack this exam with a good score.
Watch how to prepare for GATE Mechanical Engineering Part 1 | Tips by Jitendra Choubey GATE ME AIR 49
How to prepare for GATE 2019 Mechanical Engineering Exam?
- Know the pattern and syllabus of GATE exam
GATE exam consists of 65 multiple choice question (MCQ) and numerical answer type (NAT) questions of total 100 marks.
- 10 questions are from verbal and non erbal aptitude.
- 55 questions are from engineering mathematics and mechanical engineering domain.
- It is very important to get through the details of syllabus. Download the syllabus of GATE 2019 and go through it thoroughly.
- Divide subjects and focus on subjects which are more scoring
In Mechanical Engineering paper, there are certain subjects which are more scoring than others.
Subjects like
- Production and manufacturing system (15-20 marks)
- Strength of material ( 8-12 marks)
- Thermodynamics and heat transfer (8-12 marks)
- Theory of machines (8-10 marks)
- Fluid mechanics (8 -10 marks)
These are immensely important subjects and usually account for 65-70% weightage in the exam of GATE Mechanical Engineering. Hence it is very important to focus on more important subjects first.
Also do not avoid Aptitude section as it will decide your final score. Practice previous 10 years paper of all streams and it will be sufficient to help you excel in aptitude section of the GATE exam.
- Start with an easy subject
Many candidate drop preparation of exam as they often begin their journey with a technically tough subject. You should always begin with a subject in which you are more comfortable and then slowly you will pick up the race. - Select standard books
It is said that half of the work is done if you start moving in a right direction. Getting a standard book is essential in GATE exam preparation, as a good book will clear concepts more easily and other books
For mechanical paper you can follow these books. They are widely known amongst toppers and readily available:
- Strength of Materials:- B.C. Punamia, Timoshenko, Rama Murtham
- Thermodynamics:- P.K. Nag, Cengel and Boles
- Operations Research:- Heera and Gupta, H A Taha, Ravindran & Phillips.
- Industrial Engg:- Martand Telsang, Buffa & Sarin
- Fluid Mechanics:- Frank.M.White, K. Subramanya
- Production Engg:- Kalpika Jain, P.N. Rao, P.C. Sharma, Ghosh & Malik (any one).
- HMT:- Cengel, J P Holman
- RAC:- C.P. Arora
- IC Engine:- V Ganesan
- Theory of Machines: S.S. Ratan, Ghosh and Mallik
- Material Science:- W.D. Callister, UC. Jindal, I.P. Singh
- Machine Design:- Shigley, V.B. Bhandari
- Make a routine for study
Making a routine will always help to plan study and scale your performance. Make 10-12 hours a day plan. Divide the study hours into 3 slots. Viz morning, day, and evening.
- Wake up early and slog hard with the most difficult topic from 5:30 to 8:30 am. You need to make a habit of waking early.
- Take rest and do daily stuffs like eating bathing etc.
- Start again at 10:00 am and slog hard till 2:00 pm.
- After lunch take a short nap from 2:30 to 4:30 pm.
- Do some exercise from 4:30 to 5:30 pm or you can play sports like football and enjoy with friends. GATE preparation required a lot of mental dedication as well, so it is very vital to get relax your brain as well.
- From 5:30 to 9:30 pm, practice problems on topic which you have prepared.
- Do practice previous year paper.
- Buy previous year’s paper and try to solve them topic wise. It is very important to solve previous years papers. Questions from similar concepts repeat in gate exams often.
- Practice paper at least 5-8 times so that you can view questions from different perspective.
- You can also try grade up for solving previous year paper, and you can also find their expert solution for each questions for free.
- Make short notes
- All toppers believe that their short notes help immensely while recalling concepts. It is very important to jot down important points in a notebook that you came across the entire day. Having a formula book that contains important concept as well is a must to crack GATE exam.
- At the end of your preparation, it will contain almost 2000-2500 important keywords and formula.
- Revision
- People do forget things that they read. It is very important to keep revising things that you have read and the short notes that you have prepared will help you a lot while revising.
- Try to revise the entire gate syllabus that you have covered at least 8-10 times.
- Morning is the best time for revision.
- Carry your short notes whenever you are travelling or outside in train, buses or in ques somewhere, do make a habit to revise important formulas.
- Attempt mock test and test series
- Buy mock test and test series and practice them rigorously. This will improve your rank and help you to eliminate negative marking.
- Giving test series in morning is the best time. Do analyze your mistakes as this will improve you day by day.
- Start giving test as early as it could be. Many students believe that they are not enough capable to give test and shy away. Kindly do not hesitate, have confidence and start giving test series as early as you can as this will decide your rank.
- Two days before exam
- Do not try to read anything new in such situation as this will create confusion and make your confidence low
- Try to focus only on your formula book in the last 2 days before exam.
- Do not panic
- Preparing for GATE exam is a long journey and you will face lots of ups and down. Be confident and do not panic. As gate exam doesn’t test your technical knowledge only but it will also test your ability to perform under pressure.
- Be simple in approach and it is all about concepts.
Don’t forget to download GATE preparation app on Google Play Store. It provides free notes, topic-wise study material, quizzes, GATE mock test, previous papers, videos, and all the updates related GATE exam.