What you must know about the new GATE 2014

Starting 2014, the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) will be held online for all streams of engineering. Abhijit Chaudhari, Director, GATEFORUM tells you what you need to know before you register for the test. Illustration by Uttam Ghosh and Dominic Xavier.

The Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering, also known as GATE is an important entrance examination for most engineering students.

Performance in the GATE will enable them admission to post graduate programmes in engineering and science at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology and other engineering colleges in India.

Mostly taken by engineering graduates, the exam is also crucial to science graduates.

With public sector enterprises using GATE scores for recruitment, the exam has become more important for technical graduates.

Starting 2014, the exam will be held online across all streams of engineering.

GATE 2014 will be conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.

You can register for the exam online on September 2, 2013.

The last date for submission of the online application is October 3, 2013.

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Unlike 2012, where only six streams which comprised electronic and communication, computer science, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and production and industrial were paper-based, the GATE 2014 will be conducted online for all the streams.

It will be held in multiple sessions -- there will be 12 testing windows -- spread over one month, between February 1 and March 2, 2013.

The test will be held on alternate Saturdays and Sundays, with two sessions per day.

Papers with more number of applicants (most likely ECE, CS, ME and EE) will have multiple sessions.

This means that there will be two separate papers of similar difficulty levels in these streams.

The test will have numerical answer questions apart from multiple choice questions.

The application fee has been increased to 1500 for general and OBC category students while it is 750 for female and SC/ST students.

Last year, the application fee was waived off for female applicants.

With the exam going online, a lot of practice would be needed to familiarise with a computer based test.

A peculiar problem that can arise in GATE 2014 is where questions involve complicated figures/diagrams.

In case of a paper-based test one could make notes on the question paper itself.

In the online exam, you will have to replicate the diagram to work on it. Students will have to practice doing this.

With the test having numerical answer questions, wherein one has to enter an answer, instead of choosing between four options, the option of guesswork is eliminated and hence one cannot bet on luck or a solution based on elimination of wrong options.

For streams with multiple sessions, the score would probably be the only parameter to compare performance of students across the two papers.

You must know that your All India Rank may not be very relevant for these streams.