GATE

📌 Overview

GATE is a national computer-based test that measures comprehensive understanding of undergraduate subjects in Engineering, Technology, Architecture, Science, Commerce, Arts and Humanities. Scores are used for:

• Admission to Master’s and Doctoral programmes at IITs, IISc, NITs, IIITs and other participating institutes
• Recruitment / shortlisting by Public Sector Undertakings (ONGC, NTPC, IOCL, BHEL, GAIL, POWERGRID and others that notify GATE-based hiring)
• Some scholarships and assistantships

GATE 2026 is organised by IIT Guwahati. The official website is gate2026.iitg.ac.in. The exam was scheduled across four days: 7, 8, 14 and 15 February 2026. There are 30 test papers. A candidate may appear in ONE or TWO papers from the allowed two-paper combination list.

The GATE score is usually valid for three years for admissions (confirm institute rules). PSU recruitments specify which year’s GATE score they accept.

📋 Eligibility

• Candidates currently in the 3rd year or higher of any undergraduate degree programme, OR
• Candidates who have completed any government-approved degree in Engineering / Technology / Architecture / Science / Commerce / Arts / Humanities
• There is no minimum percentage and no age limit.
• Higher-degree holders are also eligible.

Choose a paper close to your qualifying discipline. Two-paper combinations are restricted to official pairs published by the organising IIT.

📝 Exam Pattern

• Language: English
• Duration: 3 hours
• Total marks: 100
• General Aptitude (GA): 15 marks (common to all papers)
• Subject paper: 85 marks (some papers split Engineering Mathematics + core; papers such as AR, CY, DA, EY, GE, GG, MA, PH, ST, XH, XL have 15 GA + 85 subject without a separate EM slot as listed in the brochure)

Question types:

• MCQ – one correct option; negative marking (usually 1/3 for 1-mark, 2/3 for 2-mark)
• MSQ – one or more correct options; no negative marking (typically)
• NAT – numerical answer entered via virtual keypad; no negative marking (typically)

Questions carry 1 mark or 2 marks. Papers XE (Engineering Sciences), XH (Humanities & Social Sciences) and XL (Life Sciences) have compulsory sections plus optional sections chosen in the form / exam as specified.

📚 Papers (codes – indicative list)

AE, AG, AR, BM, BT, CE, CH, CS, CY, DA (Data Science & AI), EC, EE, ES, EY, GE, GG, IN, MA, ME, MN, MT, NM, PE, PH, PI, ST, TF, XE, XH, XL – plus any newly added paper such as Energy Science when notified. Always check the live list on the official site.

📅 Important Dates (2026 cycle)

• Registration without late fee: typically late August to late September of the previous year
• Extended window with late fee: early October
• Admit card: January
• Examination: 7, 8, 14, 15 February 2026
• Response sheet / answer key / challenge window: after the exam
• Result: usually mid-March
• Scorecard download: after result

🏆 Score, Cut-off & Admissions

Raw marks are converted to a GATE score (normalised across sessions for multi-session papers). Qualifying marks are declared paper-wise and category-wise. Qualifying GATE does not guarantee admission or a PSU job; institutes and companies apply their own cut-offs, interviews and GATE-year validity rules.

COAP and CCMT are common admission portals used by many IITs / IISc and NITs respectively for postgraduate engineering seats. Read those portals after the result.

🔗 Official Resources

• GATE 2026 Official Website (IIT Guwahati)
• GOAPS application portal (linked from the official site)
• Syllabus PDFs for each paper, two-paper combination table, mock test and previous papers
• Later years will move to the next organising IIT’s domain – always search “GATE official organising institute” for the current cycle

💡 Preparation Tips

• Download your paper’s official syllabus and previous 15 years of papers.
• GA is common and scoring – practise verbal + numerical aptitude weekly.
• Engineering Mathematics (where applicable) is a high-ROI section.
• Mix standard textbooks with a test series that includes MSQ and NAT practice.
• For PSU goals, also prepare for interviews / GDs after GATE; score alone may not suffice.
• If taking two papers, plan energy and revision calendars carefully; papers may fall on different dates.

🗂️ How to build your personal syllabus sheet

1. Download the official syllabus / information handout PDF tonight.
2. Copy every heading into a notebook page or spreadsheet.
3. Against each heading write: Book chapter / NCERT unit / YouTube playlist name / last PYQ year you solved.
4. Mark High / Medium / Low after you solve 3 years of PYQs — not before.
5. Revise High topics four times, Medium twice, Low once, all with PYQs.

Current affairs — one method for every exam on this site

• Read (do not only watch): one newspaper or PIB daily digest.
• Make 5–10 lines per important scheme, report, judgment, RBI decision or science mission.
• Revise a 30-day file every Sunday and a 6-month file before Prelims / Mains.
• Link every CA note to a static syllabus heading (polity, economy, environment, banking, defence).

PYQ rule

• If a topic has not appeared in 8–10 years and is tiny in the official syllabus, keep it low priority.
• If a topic appears every year (polity articles, percentage, RC, banking rates, NCERT biology lines), it is High regardless of coaching “new pattern” videos.

📊 Exam Trend & Highest-Weightage Areas

Commissions do not publish an official chapter-wise weightage table. The points below come from public previous-year papers and widely used coaching analyses. Use them to decide revision order, not to skip a listed syllabus topic.

GATE trends

• General Aptitude 15 marks is common and should not be ignored.
• Engineering Mathematics (where present) is high-ROI.
• Core subject 1-mark and 2-mark mix of MCQ / MSQ / NAT. MSQ and NAT have no negative marking in the usual scheme — but MSQ needs all-correct options.
• Cut-offs vary wildly by paper (CS vs some core branches).

📚 What Content You Should Actually Follow

1. Official syllabus PDF of the current year — print it and tick topics.
2. Official previous year papers (last 8–10 years) from the commission / NTA / IBPS / SSC website.
3. One primary book per subject (listed below). Do not collect 10 PDFs of the same chapter.
4. NCERT Class 6–12 where the exam is GS / science / maths based — free on ncert.nic.in.
5. Current affairs only from a newspaper + one monthly compilation + the official PIB / ministry sites.
6. Mocks that copy the live interface (sectional timer, NAT, descriptive box).

📖 Standard Books (widely used by serious aspirants)

• Polity: Indian Polity — M. Laxmikanth; NCERT Class 11 Indian Constitution at Work
• Modern History: Spectrum (Rajiv Ahir); NCERT Themes in Indian History Part III
• Geography: NCERT Class 11–12; Certificate Physical and Human Geography — G.C. Leong (selective)
• Economy: NCERT Class 11–12; Indian Economy — Ramesh Singh or Sanjiv Verma (selective); Economic Survey highlights; Union Budget summary
• Environment: NCERT biology ecology units; Shankar IAS Environment (selective)
• Science (SSC / RRB / GD): Lucent GK science + NCERT 6–10
• Quant / Maths (SSC): SSC previous papers + Rakesh Yadav / Kiran PYQ or equivalent type-wise book; NCERT 8–10 for basics
• Quant (Bank / CAT): Arun Sharma or Sarvesh Verma selectively; daily DI sets
• English grammar: Wren & Martin (selective) + Neetu Singh (KD Campus) Plinth to Paramount / SP Bakshi Objective General English
• Reasoning: R.S. Aggarwal (foundation) + exam-specific PYQ book (Kiran / Adda / Oliveboard)
• Static GK: Lucent General Knowledge; one atlas (Oxford / Orient Blackswan)
• JEE / NEET Physics: H.C. Verma; D.C. Pandey or Physics Galaxy; NCERT exemplar
• JEE / NEET Chemistry: NCERT first; N. Awasthi / M.S. Chauhan / V.K. Jaiswal as level demands
• JEE Maths: Cengage or Arihant series + previous JEE Main / Advanced papers
• NEET Biology: NCERT Class 11–12 line by line; MTG / All-in-one only after NCERT
• CAT VARC: past CAT RCs; a good newspaper editorial habit
• GATE: standard UG textbooks of the branch + made-easy / ACE previous paper books + official GATE papers on the organising IIT site

Buy the latest edition. Second-hand previous-year paper books are enough for practice. Coaching photocopies are optional.

🌐 Official & Open / Free Content (use these first)

• NCERT textbooks (free PDF)
• ePathshala
• NPTEL — free engineering / science lectures by IIT faculty
• DIKSHA
• Press Information Bureau — authentic government news
• Union Budget & Economic Survey
• RBI — monetary policy, bulletin (banking / RBI / NABARD / SEBI)
• UPSC previous papers and cut-offs
• SSC notices and some paper archives
• IBPS information handouts
• NTA — JEE, NEET, CUET, UGC NET, CSIR NET mocks and keys
• SWAYAM — free university courses
• Khan Academy (free world-class maths / science videos mapped to school level)
• Official mock / practice portals of NTA, IBPS (when opened) and JoSAA / MCC counselling brochures

Prefer a government PDF over a random Telegram file. Fake “memory-based papers” with wrong keys waste months.

▶️ YouTube Channels & Teachers (free classes — pick ONE per subject)

These are well-known public education channels. They are not official partners of this website. Watch playlists, not 10 live classes a day. Pause and solve; do not only listen.

School / JEE / NEET foundation

• Physics Wallah (Alakh Pandey) — Physics and complete JEE / NEET boards-to-entrance path; also Defence / SSC verticals under PW
• Khan Academy India — calm concept videos for Maths and Science
• ExamFear / LearnoHub — chapter-wise school Science and Maths
• Physics Galaxy (Ashish Arora) — JEE Physics depth
• Mohit Tyagi — JEE Mathematics (long but thorough playlists)
• Unacademy JEE / NEET and Vedantu JEE — free live plus recorded batches

UPSC / State PSC

• Mrunal Patel — Economy, Budget, Economic Survey (also useful for RBI / NABARD)
• Drishti IAS — Hindi + English current affairs and GS
• StudyIQ IAS — daily CA and subject crash courses
• Vision IAS — current affairs and strategy videos
• ForumIAS / OnlyIAS / Sleepy Classes — optional and GS answer writing samples
• Unacademy UPSC — free editorial and GS sessions

SSC / Railway

• Gagan Pratap Maths — type-wise SSC Maths
• Rankers Gurukul (Aditya Ranjan) — arithmetic for beginners
• English with Rani Ma’am and KD Live (Neetu Singh Ma’am) — SSC English
• Parmar SSC — exam-oriented GA / GS
• Adda247 SSC, Wifistudy, Testbook SSC — live practice

Banking / Insurance / RBI / SEBI / NABARD

• Adda247 Bankers — full IBPS / SBI path, daily CA
• Banking Wallah (Physics Wallah) — puzzles and bank syllabus classes
• Oliveboard and Guidely — mock discussion and mains DI / puzzles
• AffairsCloud / BankersAdda written CA — monthly PDFs (website + YT recap)
• Mrunal again for RBI Grade B ESI / economy

CAT / Management

• Rodha — CAT Quant
• 2IIM CAT — VARC and strategy
• Anastasis Academy / Elites Grid — DILR sets (use free videos + official CAT papers)

GATE / ESE / CSIR

• NPTEL — first choice (IIT faculty, free)
• GATE Academy / Made Easy / ACE YouTube — previous paper discussions
• Unacademy GATE — free plus structured batches

Law / CUET / NET

• LegalEdge / LawSikho free CLAT sets and consortium sample papers
• CUET Adda / PW CUET — domain NCERT walk-throughs
• Let’s Crack UGC NET / Unacademy NTA-UGC — Paper 1 playlists

How to watch: one teacher per subject, 1.25× speed, notebook open, 30-minute video + 30-minute self-practice. Unfollow extra channels.

🗓️ A Simple Content Routine (works for almost every exam on this site)

• Morning (60–90 min): newspaper or PIB + 10 MCQs of yesterday’s CA
• Mid-day (2–3 hrs): one static / core subject from the official syllabus with a standard book
• Evening (90 min): PYQs of that chapter + error log
• Night (45 min): weak-area drill (CSAT / English / formulae)
• Weekly: one full mock in exam conditions + 2-hour analysis
• Monthly: revise the error log, not the whole bookshelf

✅ Open-source & low-cost practice platforms

• Official PYQ PDFs (UPSC, NTA keys, IBPS memory-based after official handout)
• NTA Abhyas / practice tests when the exam window opens
• Free weekly mocks: Oliveboard, Testbook, Adda247, Gradeup/BYJU’S Exam Prep (limited free tier)
• Anki / any free flashcard app for formulae and polity articles
• Google Arts & Culture / Survey of India maps for geography outline practice

⚠️ How to treat coaching names on this page

Book names and YouTube teachers are listed because lakhs of students already use them in public. This site does not sell their courses and does not guarantee a rank if you watch them. Always cross-check facts with the official syllabus and previous papers. If a video contradicts the official notification, trust the notification.

⚠️ Disclaimer

Paper list, combinations, negative-marking rules and dates are defined in that year’s Information Brochure. Use only the organising IIT website.