How to Prepare for GATE Soil Mechanics for CE? A Guide for GATE Preparations

Soil Mechanics is one of the most difficult, at the same time an important subject covered in the GATE Civil Engineering Paper. This article attempts to guide aspirants through the preparation for this subject. In GATE subject wise weightage for civil, soil mechanics manages to get an average mark weightage of 12.5 out of 65.0.

Soil Mechanics GATE 2022 Syllabus

# Origin of soils

# Soil classification

# Three-phase system

# Fundamental definitions

# Relationship and interrelationships

# Permeability & seepage

# Effective stress principle

# Consolidation

# Compaction

# Shear strength

Important Topics in GATE CE Question Paper

These are some of the important topics that are asked in the GATE paper of Civil Engineering Exam from Soil Mechanics :

# Consolidation

# Permeability

# Slope stability

# Index properties

Soil Mechanics Books

# Basic and Applied Soil Mechanics by Gopal Ranjan & Rao, Venkat Ramaiha, S. K. Garg, B.C. Punamia (774 pages)

# Fundamentals of Geotechnical Engineering. by Braja Das (593 pages)

Other Resources for Soil Mechanics Notes

These resources have a good pool of knowledge but they may turn out to be very time consuming if one decides to spend that much time and energy on one subject’s topic for GATE.

It is rather suggested to either get a personal teacher who can help you out with your structural analysis, exam preparation and time management or opt for an Online Course.

It will save you the time of collating the resources and you will also be practising on a lot of tests. Also, you will have someone who will help you with your doubts and to keep you motivated.

When selecting a personal teacher who can come to your place to help you with guidance, remember to pick the best faculty that you can. However, this may not be possible in all cases and hence saying that an Online Course can be a safe option.

Also Read: Guide to GATE Preparation for ECE Control Systems: Exam Preparation Strategy

Things to Keep in Mind While Picking an Online Course for GATE

# Faculty conducting the lectures should be highly qualified. This is possible to take from an online course but may be very difficult when thinking of calling a personal tutor to your place.

# The video should be very crisp and precise. There should be no time wasted in the video lecture in talking to other people/ students when the video is being shot or time wasted in waiting for a student to write etc.

If this happens in an online course it is not worth spending any money on it, because this will make the video lecture the same as classroom coaching. You are opting for a video lecture to save on time and these petty things in the lecture tend to take up a lot of the student’s time.

# The production quality of the video should be good. You should be able to understand everything that the faculty is saying and writing, clearly.

# The online course should provide a good way of solving doubts, understanding the exam pattern because this is certainly a very crucial part when it comes to the preparation of any exam.

# A good test series should be available to give you a real understanding of how well your preparation is going and for good practice.

GATE Exam 2022 Dates

Conclusion

If an online GATE course satisfies these parameters you should certainly opt for it as it will optimise your preparation and if you follow it religiously you will be able to finish your preparation within a span of 3 months.

Hopefully, this article will help you prepare better for the soil mechanics part in civil. You can share how you are planning to start preparing for the subject with your thoughts in the below section. Be extra ready for your GATE exam with GATE School.