New Delhi: Over 12 lakh aspiring students sat for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering 2012, also known as GATE. The examination was conducted on February 12, 2012, all across the country. GATE is an All-India examination conducted jointly by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and the seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), in order to select eligible candidates for admission into post graduate programmes in engineering, technology, architecture and pharmacy at national level.
As per sources, GATE 2012 - morning session (9 am-12 pm) common GATE 2012 largely followed the pattern of last year's paper. The pattern information was previously announced in the GATE 2012 prospectus. The exam paper consisted of 65 multiple choice questions (MCQs) with four options, with a maximum score of 100 marks. There was negative marking of 1/3 for every wrong answer incurred. In addition, question-wise break up of the paper was - engineering mathematics: 15 marks; general aptitude (verbal ability and numerical ability): 15 marks; core engineering subjects: 70 marks.
Sources further explained that in total, the exam paper was scoring for students with strong fundamentals. Moreover, keeping in view the large number of students taking GATE 2012, it is anticipated that the cut-offs for this year are likely to be little higher for both the papers. However, CS / IT - Analysis, in general, paper was slightly tougher as compared to GATE 2011. In addition, there were no questions from software engineering. In a nut shell, as per the difficulty level, questions from TOC and DMGT were the toughest and questions on DBMS and data structure were the easiest.
