Following are few steps which you will find extremely helpful in tackling the GATE Civil Engineering exam:
The Syllabus:
Find the correct syllabus. This ensures that you will be studying only for those subjects which are included under GATE. Often, students collect extra information from several websites, eventually wasting time in studying obsolete topics. The core and special topics are taken from your four years of engineering.
DOWNLOAD SYLLABUS
Content Selection:
Choose your content wisely. Be it books or video lectures. See to it that the entire syllabus is covered in whichever resource that you might choose to use.
Study Planning:
Go through the syllabus thoroughly and identify your strong and weak points. If you are starting you preparation early, then you can probably work on your weak points while simultaneously brushing up the strong ones. Having a look at the subject-wise weightage of the syllabus will help you as well. Accordingly, you can plan how much time to you will have to devote to a particular subject. Ensure that regardless of the weightage, none of the topics are skipped in your preparation. The exam is always a surprise!
| Topic | Title |
|---|---|
| Strength of Materials | R.K.Rajput |
| Structural Analysis - Theory of Structures | B.C.Punmia |
| Reinforced Concrete Design and Structure | Devdas Menon and S.Pillai |
| Design of Steel Structure | S.K.Duggal |
| Environmental Engineering | K.N.Duggal |
| Transportation Engineering | S.P.Chandola |
| Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic machines | Modi and Sethi |
| Fluid Mechanics in SI units | Yunus Cengal |
| Hydrolysis and Water Resources Engineering | S.K.Garg |
| Surveying (vol 1, 2, and 3) | B.C.Punia, Ashok Jain and Arun Jain |
| Construction Materials and Management | S.C.Rangwala, M.L.Gambhir, B.C.Punia |
| Highway Engineering | S.K.Khanna and C.E.G.Justo |
The Preparation:
- Pay more attention to understanding the concepts than finishing the syllabus. Of course, you should have a deadline for everything.
- Make neat and clear notes. These will be the source of your revision days before the exam.
- Keep daily, weekly and monthly targets. Observe, that after studying for 3-4 hours every day, how much you have covered thoroughly. Basically, monitor yourself and your learning patterns.
- Ensure that you solve the questions from a particular topic which had appeared in the previous year question papers.
- Revise! Extremely important.
- Post revision, make sure that you have solved at least 5 previous year question papers.
- If possible, get those evaluated from some teacher.
- Even if you are referring to a particular question bank, always try to look for a better solution online.
- Don’t be extreme in your thoughts – either being pressurised by the thought of results, or even the thought of getting selected.
- Stay positive
- And always, stay healthy!
HAPPY LEARNING!
