GATE 2013 Exam Structure/ Pattern/ Format

This blog post of mine follows from my earlier blog article on GATE 2013 titled:  GATE 2013 Notification, Form & Eligibility  and is in...

This blog post of mine follows from my earlier blog article on GATE 2013 titled: GATE 2013 Notification, Form & Eligibility and is intended to provide answers to following questions:

What is the format/scheme of GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) 2013 exam, how many questions are asked and are of what marks? What is the duration of GATE 2013?

These are the question that comes automatically to a GATE newbie as he starts to prepare for the exam. Although all this information is available in the official GATE website, I thought to reproduce the info in a capsular form so that it is easily understood by a person new to GATE exam.

Structure of GATE exam means the format/scheme of GATE – how many papers are there, of how many questions/marks and of what duration. While this blog post tries to help you understand this, if you want to dig deeper and want to know what sort of questions are asked, please go through my blog article titled: GATE Question pattern with sample questions.

List of GATE Exam subjects:

Let me tell you that there are 21 GATE subjects and the pattern of exam for each of them are identical except the three subjects - GG (Geology and Geophysics), XE (Engineering Sciences) & XL(Life Sciences). Pattern of these 3 subjects has some minor variations compared to other GATE subjects.

Again, 15 GATE 2013 subjects are to be online (i.e. Computer Based Test) while the rest 6 subjects would be Offline (i.e. Pen-paper test).

List of these 15 Online GATE subjects are as below:

1). Aerospace Engineering (AE)

2). Agricultural Engineering (AG)

3). Architecture and Planning (AR)

4). Biotechnology (BT)

5). Chemical Engineering (CH)

6). Chemistry (CY)

7). Civil Engineering (CE)

8). Mathematics (MA)

9). Metallurgical Engineering (MT)

10). Mining Engineering (MN)

11). Physics (PH)

12). Textile Engineering and Fibre Science (TF)

13). Geology and Geophysics (GG)

14). Engineering Sciences (XE)

15). Life Sciences (XL)

List of these 6 Offline GATE subjects are:
1). Computer Science and Information Technology (CS)
2). Mechanical Engineering (ME)
3). Production and Industrial Engineering (PI)
4). Electronics and Communication Engineering (EC)
5). Electrical Engineering (EE)
6). Instrumentation Engineering (IN)

There is only a single GATE exam paper for each subject, which consists of 65 Objective type questions of 100 mark to be answered in 3 hours. Each of these papers has two parts – “General Aptitude" part containing 15 marks & the “Subject-specific” part containing rest 85 marks. General Aptitude questions are common for all GATE subjects.

GATE Exam Structure for all subjects except GG, XE & XL:

With above concept, let us find how many questions are asked in “General Aptitude" section of the GATE paper. As you can find in the GATE exam pattern below, there are 10 questions in the “General Aptitude" section – 5 of them of 1 mark each & the other 5 questions of 2 mark each – thus totaling total 10 questions which worth 15 marks in the “General Aptitude" section.

As you can see above, the “Subject-specific” section of the GATE paper consists of 55 questions which worth 85 marks. Out of these 55 questions, 25 questions are of 1 mark each while the rest 30 questions are of 2 mark each – thus totaling 85 marks.

Negative marking in GATE:

If the question is of 1 mark, there is negative marking of 1/3rd mark (i.e. 0.33) for each wrong answer. If the question is of 2 mark, there is negative marking of 2/3rd mark (i.e. 0.67) for each wrong answer.

GATE Exam Structure for GG, XE & XL:

While the pattern of 18 GATE subjects are same as the format given above, as said previously, structure of GATE GG, XE & XL are a little different. The pattern of each subject is given below separately: 

GATE Exam Structure for GG:

In GG paper of GATE, there are two parts in subject questions - Part-A & Part-B. In Part B, there are two sections - Section 1 (Geology) and Section 2 (Geo-physics). You have to answer only one of these two sections - i.e. either Geology or Geo-physics section. Thus the compulsory papers in GATE GG subject consists of "General Aptitude" & "Part-A" while Optional paper is one out of Geology or Geo-physics.

GATE Exam Structure for XE:

In XE paper of GATE, there are two sections in subject questions - Section-A (Compulsory) & Section-B to Section-G (Optional), in which you have to appear in any two of XE sections B to G. 

List of Section-B to G is given below:

Fluid Mechanics: B

Materials Science: C

Solid Mechanics: D

Thermodynamics: E

Polymer Science and Engineering: F

Food Technology: G

Thus the compulsory papers in GATE XE subject consists of "General Aptitude" & "Section-A" while Optional paper is two out of Section B to G.

GATE Exam Structure for XL:

In XL paper of GATE, there are two sections in subject questions - Section-H (Compulsory) & Section-I to Section-M (Optional), in which you have to appear in any two of XL sections I to M. 

List of Section-I to M is given below:

Biochemistry: I

Botany: J

Microbiology: K

Zoology: L

Food Technology: M

Thus the compulsory papers in GATE XL subject consists of "General Aptitude" & "Section-H" while Optional paper is two out of Section I to M.

Hope with above discussion you have understood what is the structure of GATE exam. My next articleGATE Question pattern with sample questions would go a little deeper from here, telling you what sort of questions are asked in GATE. So please check this blog again later.