GATE 2019 CIVIL ENGINEERING ANALYSIS
-By SUSMIT BORUAH
EII GUWAHATI
GATE : A Test of Grey Matter
The GATE or Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering is a competitive examination organized annually, tentatively in the month of February. It is organized jointly by IITs and IISC of the country on behalf of the National Coordination board (NCB)-GATE, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India. It primarily tests the indepth knowledge and problem solving capacity of aspirants in various undergraduate subjects of engineering and science.
GATE as its name suggests is a gateway to plethora of opportunities for its aspirants. It opens the door for a masters program, doctoral program as well as recruitment to many acclaimed PSUs and Government Organisations of the country. The examination is purely Computer Based and is organized in two sessions wherever necessary. This year it had been conducted by IIT Madras for 24 different subjects. In this article we will analyze the “Civil Engineering” paper in particular and discuss the preparation strategy in general.
Analysis: The paper consists of two different types of questions.
- Multiple Choice Questions (MCQ): The candidate has to choose the correct option between four choices. They carry 1 or 2 marks each. For every wrong answer there is a penalty of 1/3 marks and 2/3 marks respectively.
- Numerical Answer Type (NAT): In this type of question there is no negative marking but a range of values within which the answer must lie.
GATE 2019 Civil Engineer Paper Analysis
The Gate paper consists of 65 number of questions carrying 100 marks out of which 10 questions carrying 15 marks are based on English, General Aptitude and Analytical Ability and rest 55 number of questions are based on the core subjects. In this edition the Civil Engineering Papers followed the general trend with a pinch of deviation. Some of the new topics include Soil and Structural Dynamics and Railway Engineering. The subjects like Soil Mechanics, Environment Engineering, Transportation Engineering and Pavement Design took a larger share of the paper as compared to the other subjects.
A new trend that has been observed in the GATE question papers in the last couple of years is the blend of different subjects into one question. Honorary mention goes to the question in which subjects like Soil Mechanics, SOM and RCC have been amalgamated. The overall difficulty level suggests that this edition required more intellectual effort than the previous years. Some of the questions were time consuming and required comprehensive knowledge.
The following is the distribution of marks between different subjects:
| SET-1 | SET-2 | |||||
| Subject | Marks | No. of 1 mark questions | No. of 2 mark questions | Marks | No. of 1 mark questions | No. of 2 mark questions |
| English | 5 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 1 |
| General Aptitude | 10 | 2 | 4 | 10 | 2 | 4 |
| SET-1 | SET-2 | |||||
| Subject | Marks | No. of 1 mark questions | No. of 2 mark questions | Marks | No. of 1 mark questions | No. of 2 mark questions |
| Soil Mechanics | 16 | 4 | 6 | 14 | 4 | 5 |
| Environment Engineering | 8 | 2 | 3 | 12 | 2 | 5 |
| Strength of Materials | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| Structure | 6 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 |
| Steel Structure | 5 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 |
| Reinforced Cement Concrete | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic Machines | 6 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 2 |
| Open Channel Flow | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Transportation Engineering+ Pavement Design | 9 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 3 | 3 |
| Surveying | 7 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 2 |
| Railway and Airport Engineering | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| Engineering hydrology | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Irrigation | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Building Materials + Dynamics | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| Project Management(CPM+ PERT) | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Engineering Mathematics | 10 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 3 |
Preparation Strategy:
- All subjects are equally important as an aspirant cannot afford to lose a single mark. General English and Engineering mathematics should be prepared with equal emphasis as the core subjects.
- Multiple revisions of notes, solved questions of previous years GATE papers and factual questions of previous years ESE papers are necessary for speed and accuracy in exam. The key to success is developing the connection between the subjects.
- The paper also tests the speed of an aspirant. To get a command in this genre one needs to develop some thumb rules and shortcut tactics like memorizing standard results and diagrams.
- The aspirants should also test their preparation prior to examination by appearing in national level mock exams. These help them to learn from their mistakes.
- The duration of the examination is 3 hrs. Prior to the examination the candidates should decide to devote fixed amount of time for solving definite portions of the paper, e.g. It is a good practice to complete the General English and Aptitude portion within first 20-25 minutes.
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For GATE syllabus see the official website http://gate.iitm.ac.in/gate2019/