Change in GATE 2009 Pattern

GATE 2009 INFORMATION BROCHURE

1. 60 Questions, 100 marks
This is one of the major changes. Though the questions is objective type, the marking scheme will be different. Much lesser questions. The time limit is same – 3 hours.

There will be a total of 60 questions carrying 100 marks. Q.1 to Q.20 (20 questions) will carry one mark each (sub-total 20 marks). Q.21 to Q.50 (30 questions) will carry two marks each (sub-total 60 marks). Q.51 to Q.60 (10 questions) will carry two marks each (sub-total 20 marks).

Q.51 through Q.56 (3 pairs) will be common data questions and question pairs (Q.57, Q.58) and (Q.59, Q.60) will be linked answer questions. The answer to the second question of the last two pairs will depend on the answer to the first question of the pair. If the first question in the linked pair is wrongly answered or is un-attempted, then the answer to the second question in the pair will not be evaluated.

A higher penalty for making mistakes now.

NEGATIVE MARKING: For Q.1 to Q.20, 1/3 mark will be deducted for each wrong answer. For Q.21 to Q.56, 2/3 mark will be deducted for each wrong answer. The question pairs (Q.57, Q.58), and (Q.59, Q.60) are questions with linked answers. There will be negative marks only for wrong answer to the first question of the linked answer question pair i.e. for Q.57 and Q.59, 2/3 mark will be deducted for each wrong answer. There is no negative marking for Q.58 and Q.60.

All the papers bearing the codes AE, AG, CE, CH, CS, EC, EE, IN, ME, MN, MT, PI and TF will contain questions on Engineering Mathematics to the extent of 15 to 20 marks.

2. GATE Score valid only for 1 year now
GATE Score will be valid only for one year, this year onwards. Though they still have mentioned that third year students are eligible to give these exams.

We will be informing more on this in this thread. If anyone has more information, kindly post here. For your information, IIT Roorkee is conducting the GATE 2009.

Important Dates

Commencement of :
1) Sale of information brochure and offline application forms Monday 22nd September 2008
2) Online application form submission Monday 22nd September 2008

Last date of issue of Information Brochure and Application forms :
1) by post from GATE Offices Friday 17th October 2008
2) at bank counters Friday 24th October 2008
3) at GATE office counters Wednesday 29th October 2008

Last date for :
1) Online application form submission (website closure) Friday 24th October 2008
2) Receipt of completed Online/Offline Application Form at respective zonal GATE Office Wednesday 29th October 2008

Types of multiple choice objective questions

Types of multiple choice questions remains the same :

The multiple choice objective questions in all papers and sections will contain four answers, of which only one is correct. The types of questions in a paper may be based on following logic:

(i) Recall: These are based on facts, principles, formulae or laws of the discipline. The candidate is expected to be able to obtain the answer either from his/her memory of the subject or at most from a one-line computation.

(ii) Comprehension: These questions will test the candidates understanding of the basics of his/her field, by requiring him/her to draw simple conclusions from fundamental ideas.

(iii) Application: In these questions, the candidate is expected to apply his/her knowledge either through computation or by logical reasoning.

(iv) Analysis and Synthesis: These can be linked questions, where the answer to the first question of the pair is required in order to answer its successor. Or these can be common data questions, in which two questions share the same data but can be solved independently of one another.

Common data based questions: Multiple questions may be linked to a common data problem, passage and the like. Two or three questions can be formed from the given common data problem. Each question is independent and its solution obtainable from the above problem data/passage directly. (Answer of the previous question is not required to solve the next question). Each question under this group will carry two marks.
Linked answer questions: These questions are of problem solving type. A problem statement is followed by two questions based on the problem statement. The two questions are designed such that the solution to the second question depends upon the answer to the first one. In other words, the first answer is an intermediate step in working out the second answer. Each question in such linked answer questions will carry two marks.

The questions based on the above four logics may be a mix of single stand alone statement / phrase / data type questions, combination of option codes type questions or match items types questions.