Pre-preparation for the GATE preparation

In this post I will try to answer some of the important questions that usually arise in the mind of a GATE aspirant.

PHASE 1: To become familiar with GATE exam.

I think I should start with the very basic question, “What is GATE all about?”

You can get the answer of this question by simply visiting the website of any IIT or IISc. For your reference I am providing one link below. One can go through that.

http://www.gate.iitb.ac.in/gate2k9/index.htm

Please note that this information is about GATE09 only. It may be subjected to change for GATE10. The websites will be updated as form for GATE10 will be available. Generally form is available in the month of October or September end.

PHASE 2: Preparation.

For a GATE aspirant after getting answer of first question the chunk of questions will arise regarding preparation. Now I am trying to answer all those questions one by one.

1. What is the correct time to start preparation for GATE?

Ideally one should study all the courses thoroughly at the college level. It means that the preparation for GATE starts as soon as one takes admission in the engineering college. But I know this is the ideal thing and only few can do this.

As in beginning no one can decide whether he want to do M.tech or not. This maturity comes in the 2^nd or 3^rd year only, as now one can decide whether he is interested in the technical stuffs or not.

As far as my personal opinion is concerned one should start preparation during the 3^rd year. And one should appear for GATE in the 3^rd year to have a feel about exam, but if one have not prepared well this will be of no worth. So try to complete as many subjects as possible (perfectly) before you appear for the GATE during the 3^rd year. This will help you a lot to find out where you are lacking in preparation, how to manage the paper in 3 hours, what is the effect of negative marking and all such important issues.

2. What is the authentic material for the preparation?

There are many different opinions for the answer of this particular question.

As far as I am concerned I had took lot of pain in the selection of authentic material for preparation. As this is the most important aspect of the preparation.

There are so many misconceptions that the book from GK publication is enough for the preparation or say various materials available from different coaching institutes do the work. Frankly speaking all these materials available in the market are supplements only. They are not at all enough for the perfect preparation for GATE.

The most important material is authentic books for a particular subject. Always prepare any subject from authentic books only.

I had approached to IITs’ professors for this and I had come to know about the various authentic books which probably I had not used during my college. And I had experienced the difference too between books used at our colleges and these books. Some of the books were same too.

I am going to produce a list of books to be used for different subjects of mechanical engineering.

1. Advanced Engineering mathematics by

a. Erwin kreyszig (John wiley & sons publication) (strongly recommended)

b. Dr.B.S.Garewal (Khanna publications) (strongly recommended)

2. Engineering mechanic (statics and dynamics) by

a. Beer and Johnston (the Tata McGraw Hill publications)

b. Prof. P.J.shah
(few but various enough examples - good book)

3. Strength of material by

a. G.H.Ryder (English Language Book society)

4. Theory of machines by

a. Amitabh Ghosh and Ashok kumar mallik ( Affiliated East –West press private Limited)

b. S.S. Rattan ( The Tata McGraw Hill publications)

Both the books are necessary for the preparation.

5. Machine design by

a. R.S.Khurami ( S.Chand & sons publication)

Though this is not the authentic book but for subject it is more than enough for GATE)

6. Vibrations by

a. V.P.singh

7. Fundamentals of thermodynamics by

a. P.K.Nag (The Tata McGraw Hill publications)

b. Van Whylen (John wiley & sons publication)

Both books are strongly recommended and necessary for total preparation.

8. Refrigeration and Air conditioning by

a. R.K.Rajput (thermal science and engineering) (Laxmi publications)

b. http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/

This is the website developed by the IITs. Here you can get web courses for almost all courses. But the psychometric processes described here are too good. Please go through that.

9. Applied thermodynamics

a. R.K.Rajput (thermal science and engineering) (Laxmi publications)

10. Heat and Mass transfer by

a. Yunus A.cengel (The McGraw-Hill companies)

To understand the fundamentals properly I strongly recommend this book

11. Fluid mechanics and machines

a. Dr.R.K.Bansal (Laxmi publications) (strongly recommended)

b. Yunus A.cengel (The McGraw-Hill companies)

To understand the fundamentals properly I strongly recommend this book

12. Manufacturing science by

a. P.N.Rao (volume 2 and 3) (The Tata McGraw Hill publications)

b. Amitabh Ghosh and Ashok kumar mallik ( Affiliated East –West press Private limited)

c. P.C.Sharma

d. S.Kalpakjian (Pearson Education) (very nice book) (fundamentally strong)

All these books are necessary for the complete understanding of the subject manufacturing science.

13. Management science and Operations management

a. Hamdy A.Taha (operations research)( prentice hall of India privet limited)

b. William J. Stevenson ( introduction to management science)(IRWIN pub)

c. B.Mahadevan (Operations management) (Dorling Kindersley (India)Privet limited)

d. J.K.sharma (operations research)

Note. The topic named “Probabilistic Inventory system” is nicely given in the Brilliant tutorials.

To understand the fundamentals properly I strongly recommend this book

Besides this previous 10 to 12 years solved GATE papers are needed.