Wednesday, December 16, 2009

What Next??

"I have studied with all my might over the past 5 months."
"I am well versed in 10 subjects."
"I have been getting within the top 100 ranks in the mock tests."

"I am better than my friends in most of the subjects."

All these statements do not make any sense if you are not able to perform in the 3hrs of the final Examination. All that matters here is your performance & if you dont give that, you just become one of the losers (doesnt matter if you've worked hard or not).

Preparation is like a pipeline(the computer architecture one ;)). What u feed into the pipe is your hardwork. what you get as the output is the degree of your success. More the hardwork u feed in, the better will be the success rate. That is not all, people forget about what happens inside this pipe. This is where i would place the purpose of this post.

It is really pathetic to lose out on achieving success, inspite of the enormous hardwork you ve done. Yes, it does happen at times. what happens if the pipe has a hole? what happens if the pipe has lesser capacity? Yes you ve gotta build this pipe such that your hardwork doesnt spill mid-way inside the pipeline.

Now again this pipeline can be thought to be made up of many connecting pipes. First, the "Revision" pipe. Second, the "management" pipe. Eventually your outcome can only be as large as the smallest pipe(bottleneck). ie, if your Revision is fool-proof and your management skills are pretty bad, then dont expect a 100% success. Similarly, having great management skills without revising the concepts might be of no use. In this post i just quote some of the management techniques that we came up with during our GATE preparation.

You are given say, 65 questions. Which ones do i answer first? say i start from the last, what if i am not able to answer 10 questions in a row; it sure will affect my confidence. what should i do? Now just think. If you are in such a situation during ur GATE exam. Here are some strategies tested by us. First, the one proposed by karthik. Once u receive ur paper, just scan the paper with a neutral view(dont look forward for questions from subjects of ur interest). scan them one by one and look out for the easy ones that require the least time to answer. Remember, in GATE papers such questions will always be there. Note: there might be questions that are very familiar to u but time consuming. just tick mark them and dont answer them for now. At the end of the FIRST PASS, you wud ve answered all the free hits. Now go for a second PASS, where u answer the questions u had marked previously. ie those which u know but are time consuming. Then go for a THIRD PASS, attack the tougher problems, these are just icing on the CAKE. u get them, its gr8. u dont get them, dont worry, after all those taking GATE are of ur caliber only. It wud be tough for them too. If u spend more than 3 mins on a question, u shud know, it is a TIME KILLER. Immediately skip to the next question. I know it is difficult to skip. But this can be mastered with a little bit of practise. This Strategy can only be used in GATE if u have answered atleast 5 papers before using the same.

Second, this is my own strategy. Start answering from the first, one mark questions. These are simpler and can be finished soon. So the strategy is to finish them within 30 mins after the start of the exam. Now start the paper from the last. (ie) the linked answer questions(questions that do not hav negative marking, something that shouldn be missed). The logic behind this is that, we are better suited to answer them when we are calm rather than postponing it till the end. Now we can proceed to answer the center part of the paper. This strategy has its own flaws. I also tried the alternate logic of answering the questions from the subject that i like the most. ie Networks. Then move on to answer all questions from say, TOC. But i should mention, it didnt work out well as i expected it to.

Third, this is again something that i came up with. The Guessing strategy. What are we writing the exam for? Marks. I am not that kind, who says i wont take up the marks that i dont deserve. I am not the kind like anish and pawan who only mark an answer if they are 100% sure. I was always ready to go for them as long as they dont get me into trouble(negative marking). There was a time when i was able to eliminate 2 out of the 4 choices. Now i have to choose 1. I usually went for such question. Yes i used to take a guess. :D. More often than not, u get many such questions. There is a possibility that this might back fire. Coming back to the strategy, mark ur guesses on the question paper, like say with a "G" besides the question. Dont mark them on the OMR sheet. after u complete the paper, take a percentage(like 10 %) of the questions u have correctly answered(say i answered 40 questions, then i can guess 4). U ve gotta mark only those number of guesses. Now from all the G's u have marked, select the most promising "G" questions and mark them. Another logic here is that if u get even one of the 5  G questions right, it will cover up for the rest. (ie) 2 * 1(correct) - .5 * 4(wrong ones) = 0.

It is expected that u figure out ur own strategy and practice it over time. It is possible that the strategy suitable for me doesnt work well for u. Well, which strategy did i finally use in my GATE. thats the subject of my next post. :)

Friday, September 18, 2009

Flash Cards - Preparation Strategy No 2

Here is your Long awaited sequel. I know i should be writing at a faster pace to cater to the needs of those writing GATE 2010. Given the fact that you have already mastered the usage of Terra Incognita, all that remains is resolving TI. What is the use of documentation if the data is not put to use. Yeah it is the abstract point "resolve your TI" (from my previous post)that i am going to elaborate here.

TI resolution can be done in many ways. Brute force method of randomly picking the topic and completing it really works fine(for a change :)). However, as u climb uphill, the burden of remembering things increases. What use is learning if you are not able to remember anything?? Here comes the flash cards/bathroom notes or whatever u call that.

Some people might want to argue that revision phase comes during the last month of preparation. But well, with syllabus as vast as GATE, i guess it should go hand in hand with the preparation phase.  

For most of you, this isnt a new strategy. You just needed someone to remind you of the strategies that you used in the past. That is precisely what i am doing now. For the others, well, lets see how it is done.


Take an A4 sheet, keep folding it in halves until it reaches a size that can fit in ur pocket(the reason for which can be found later). Now cut the edges so that it forms discrete pages. Pin it in the corner. Yipee !! your flash card is made. Make a book for each subject, probably u can use another A4 sheet and make a bigger booklet. Now as and when you resolve your TI, write down all that you want about that particular topic. Remember, your TI doesnt have detailed information, it is used for just documentation purpose.When does your TI entry become obsolete?? The moment you resolve that topic, your TI "entry" loses its value. So your flash cards are the only ones that are going to help you remember things. So make sure you note down all the important points(you can also include the silliest of the details).

Now that your booklet is made, u can carry it wherever you want, in ur pocket. This really helps if you are attending a boring lecture in your college.
U can use familiar techniques that you use in computer science to enhance your Flash card usage. For example,while revising the topics, on the first day lets say u revise one booklet. On the second day, u revise the first and second together. On the third day, u revise the second and third together etc.What is this strategy called(a well known technique u know)?? However, this ensures that you revise each booklet atleast twice.

At the end of your preparation make sure you have atleast 10 booklets for each subject. And let it be comprehensive. If you are able to do this, i am sure you will be break into the top 200 ranks.

Why toppers choose IIT Bombay over IISc??

Over the past 3 to 4 years, constantly AIR 1 has chosen IIT Bombay over IISc. In the top 50 ranks, almost 25 have chosen IIT Bombay. And the rest distributed between IISc and the other IITs. Newspapers say that the Mecca for Technical education in india is IIT Bombay(they also point out that before 10 yrs it was IIT Kanpur and before that it was IIT Kharagpur). Whatever may be the reason behind this trend, it certainly makes us feel that IIT Bombay is on par or better than IISc. But the truth seems to be quite different from what we hear.

The first and the most popular reason why people choose IIT Bombay, is nothing but what people call "life" and "lifestyle". Life at IITB is fantastic is what they say. "In IITB we can enjoy a lot " is what u hear from most who chose IITB. Just to give a real incident : People discussing outside the Exam hall in IISc, "hey, life at IISc is boring yaar. See no one is coming outside. IITB is not like that. We can enjoy a lot."(source : vaibhav, my classmate). However as this very reason conflicts with the purpose of coming to IIT(gaining knowledge), the genuineness of this reason is in question.

The second reason is the food factor. Food, i have to agree, is very good here in IIT Bombay. The third reason and one of the most unknown reasons is probably  the most important contributing factor too. There are many many MSc students in the top 100 ranks. Such students do not have the choice of going to IISc and other IITs as they have an anti-MSc policy that imposes strict constraints on them. But IITB does not impose any such restrictions, and with IISc rejecting them, they come here right away.

With the three main contributing factors, along with the fact that 60 out of the top 100 JEE students opting for IITB, really makes IITB the mecca of technical education in india. Does that mean IITB does not deserve that title? Well, we cannot say so.

With top students selected in GATE and JEE coming here to IITB, most of the professors are attracted to this institute. An evident fact that is proven by the faculty strength in CS dept of IITB, 45. The highest number in any CS dept in India. This powerful combination of students and faculty can result in good quality of research. So this vicious cycle continues and i can say for sure that for the next 10 years atleast, this institute will be on the top. Though IISc is clearly the most sought after institute, it seems like it needs to offer something more than just quality education to be the top institution in the country. :)  

Friday, August 14, 2009

Terra Incognita- Preparation Strategy No1

I heard too much of coffee is not good for health. So this was the motivation behind me writing this blog. So this one is all about preparation strategy. If you are luking for humour, then this post is not for u.

To start with, Terra Incognita is a tool that was initially used to record covered geographical regions on the map. This is done so that one will be clear on what he/she wishes to do further. In other words, it is nothing but a neat way of representing the current state so that proper actions can be taken from then on. The same tool could possibly be applied to document the progress that we make during the GATE preparation phase, an idea proposed by karthik(again).

This idea was totally new to us, almost the same time the previous year. We were in the same state as you are(atleast most of you who are reading this :)). Yeah i know how confusing it is, with so many techniques proposed by so many people around you. Above all, the mere pressure to perform well. Its better to understand the bitter truth, your future depends on the 3 hrs of examination. Whatever sacrifices and hardwork we ve made goes in vain if we fail to make it in the 3hrs.It is better to try out the techniques prior to the exam and find out which one suits you the best. Another good reason why you should take up mock tests. Yeah, it was an opportunity to test all my newly acquired skills and logic involving a lot of probabilistic calculations. Back to the TI, as it was called, when we started using it quite frequently.
TI is a very logical (though some might classify it as obvious) tool. As prof. Kamakoti says, "Obviousness is the enemy of correctness". Some things are better done than talked about. So let me just give a brief description of how it is done.

We maintained a noteboook, called a TI notebook. This notebook, is in a way, our progress report. As and when you come across an unknown topic, enter it into the book. This comes in handy when you solve the previous GATE papers etc.Maintain a seperate partition for each subject.Make sure you take it wherever you go.

The aim of maintaining such a book is that it serves as a guideline with which you can complete the final phase of your preparation. In other words, it makes your preparation towards GATE complete. And i know the previous statement is quite a loaded one. Not everyone is in this stage of preparation. How does it serve those who have just now started preparing?
Hardwork is the only way to success is an old story. Now lets try our luck on smartwork.For the geeks who are cruising through the final phase of their preparations, this tool is just a helper. But for those late entrants, this is your Bible.


For you late entrants, a good strategy is to browse through the previous GATE papers and fill in your TI with all those things that you dont know. I can understand whats running in your mind. Yes, your TI looks bulky, as you do not know anything. Better get a 192 pages notebook :D. Now that your TI book has grown enough, u need to clear up the heap now. Try resolving your TI. This description is incomplete without specifying a time limit. Inititally, it takes less time to browse through the paper, as u do not know anything ;). So you can complete this in 1.5 hrs. I would advice you to do this when you are in college. When you are back home,surround yourselves with all the reference books and try resolving the TI.The TI resolution part might take time depending on your searching capability, indexing, hashing etc.

Success in exam depends on how cool you are. It has absolutely no relationship with how long you study.This is what everyone realises in the end. If you have confidence in yourself, u can complete even a very difficult topic in minutes. On the otherhand, even a trivial topic might take hours if you lack confidence.


And my next post might take sometime as the schedule in my college schedule is very hectic. I am writing this blog cos i finished with my assignment 12 hrs in advance. :D



Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Do u knw to make good coffee??

I just browsed thru' my blog. As correctly suggested by many, i have given a total one-sided view of the preparation phase. Coming to the interesting aspects of it, let me just start with this post. Someone says only geeks nd bookworms make their way thru GATE. Here we stand as "Exception"-al examples of that. These are some thoroughly enjoyed interludes of our Preparations days. This post, as u might realise in the end, serves dual purpose. First is to tell you how much fun preps can be. The second is to let out my frustrations.

If anyone comes to me asking suggestions for successful preparation, the question i shoot out is, Well, "first ask yourself if you knw to make good coffee??". How important can making coffee be. I would say, preps can be incomplete without coffees. Often we come across days wen we need to stay up overnight. It becomes nearly impossible without caffeine. Well sometimes it keeps us just as much alert, to realize that we're falling asleep. Quite often, sleeping over the Big Cormen Book, waking up in the morning and finding torn pages, it happens to everyone. You are not an exception. If this is ur problem, then coffee is there to help you out.

Usually everyone prefers the Mom-Made-Coffee, for it is amazing to taste, given in a tray, in neat porcelain wares, ready to be consumed, and wat not. I strictly do not believe in making parents stay up all night along with us. For all that you know, they might not have stayed up like for themselves.So it is always better to learn making 'GOOD' Coffees. And i cry because i was the only one who knows to make coffee in the study group that we had. Always asking 'why god only me?'. (Now karthik must be fuming, @karthik :well i am talking abt 2009 preps).

I am a genuine host always wanting to help my guests and make them feel comfortable. I make coffee whenever we have a night-out at my place. Thats understandable. But when we have night outs at someone else's place, then guess who makes coffee? its me again. It becomes a little embarrassing to work in a kitchen thats not urs. And of course u cant be working wen ur supposed to sit and enjoy. Anish, now learn to make coffees, it might help u in ur married life(remember u had great plans, 1 wife, 2 children, etc. Oh sorry i didnt realise i was blogging ) !!

Sometimes we miscalculate the proportion nd coffee might just fall short by half a glass. Well guess who's going to pay the price? the person who makes it. And all the more fun if it is the same person who makes it always. Now i think u understand my woes.

Somehow after all this, i found my kitchen to be an exotic location where i can study really well leaning on the granite slabs. Try this. It really WORKS !!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Pathway to GATE 2008

After being introduced to a massive 20 subject syllabi, we were awestruck. But it was more of an astonishment than the pressure to perform well. In the Begining we were asked to choose some subject of our choice and start preparing comprehensively.It all looked the same, atleast for me. I chose Computer Networks. I could have very well chosen any other subject over Networks. But this choice so happened to be the best one i have ever made. This happens to be the only subject,of all, that captures my interest. 

I picked up Computer Networks by Andrew S Tanenbaum, started reading it on a regular basis. Sometimes addicted, i could simply not leave the book alone. It was informative, humorous and interesting. I could finish most parts of the book within a week. And too much of anything, as u know, is good for nothing. I litterally dragged on with the book throughout the next week. 

Now came the group meeting when we teach each other the topics learnt in the past week. As karthik started his preparation early, most of these meetings were dominated by him, not surprising though. Just to give a background, I was the first in the group to have ever touched the Networks Book with an aim to solve the questions asked in GATE. Everyone explained the topics that they had learnt the previous week. Their teaching was good enough that we were able to solve some problems asked in GATE, just immediately after. When my turn came, i was able to express in mere words what i had learnt. Though not inherently good at explaining things, i managed to just scrape through. When the topic shifted to solving some network problems to end the discussion over, we tried solving some previous years questions. Most of the problems in networks (if u have prepared for GATE, u would know) had a huge description and took almost an entire minute to just finish reading the question, leave alone the understanding part of it. These problems always scared the hell out of us that we leave such questions almost always in the initial mock tests. Coming back to the narrative, from all that i had learnt the previous week, i could not even solve one problem. Disappointed, we closed the session that day.

Though depressing at times, the desire to succeed somehow drove us to pitch in a lot of hardwork. We just managed to get good scores in the mock tests entirely relying on the basic subjects like Digital Logic, Basic computer architecture, Data Structures, Algorithms etc. We realised that further progress could not be made unless we master atleast a few more subjects. With semester exams coming in between, it became all the more difficult to balance GATE preparation and the college curriculum. Flunking atleast 3 subjects in each model semester exams, we had to write RE-TESTS, and of course the RE-RE-Tests in case we failed in the Re-test. This process continued until days before the start of the semester exams. No wonder why our college tops the Pass Percentage list, among the 250 Engg colleges in the state.

By the end of the 5th semester, the aggregate percentage had downcurved. From a constant 86%. It was dipping below 84. When we took the issue with karthik, he had a happy news for us. He said he made a good 76% in his 7th semester. It was a great relief for us. Atleast we understood that some trade-offs need to be made between the two. The significant landmarks achieved in this period were
  • Me finishing Computer Networks, solving almost all problems.
  • Anish Mastering Theoretical subjects
  • Pawan Mastering  Computer Architecture.
  • Karthik consistently getting within AIR10 in mock tests.
  • Succesfully converting Anish(who used to sleep at 9PM sharp) into a nocturnal, just like us.
LAST MONTH PREPARATION
      
               With just one month left out, we had to speed up the preparation. In this period, we left karthik on his own and struck to the plans he had made. After all we knew this was his serious      Game (ALL-REALS, not TRIALS(if u know the street cricket slang)).[sorry about using recursive constructs]. He  had to sandwich the learning schdeule for computer networks and a few other subjects. Though it went on well, it resulted in a Burn-out.  He almost didnt touch his book for the last 10 days. According to me, the last month preparation is very crucial and missing out on it is a game lost. Also there is the TIME factor. U never know what happens in the 3 hrs of the exam. The Preparation Time lost by you is the mark gained by the others by utilizing that time. So it is always better to finish with the basic preparation early and keep revising the same in the last month.

Taking into account all the mistakes that we committed, and we thought we had committed, and of course a lot of feedbacks from Karthik, we were able to refine the plan and implement them in our 2009 preparation.

GATE 2008 ended well with karthik making AIR242. The highest in cs dept that year. Also getting almost 4 admits across india in most IITs and IISc. It was a good experience for us helping us perfect our plans for the next year.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Before Gate 2008

HISTORY OF PROPAGATE CS


Yet another 12th std flunker failing to make it big in IIT-JEE. May be i should ve decided that it was not my piece of cake. May be not, i was very close to making it big, but just missed it because it was destined not to happen. Craving for another chance to make it big, after endless thoughts of dropping a year and studying, with high reluctance, joined Meenakshi Sundararajan Engg. College. The initial days were terrible, only to be realised soon that my college was not all that bad.
Quickly by the end of 1st semester, realised that i was good at programming (atleast as compared to others in my class). Could this be a begining to a new success story?? Not yet.

With a lot of hope to make it big, joined a java class, stood first in the class too. But this could mean one of the two things. One that i am really good. and the other 'may be the others were worse than me'.   

EFFECT OF KRANTI'08 on my career (Karth-"Rags" Effect)

                  KRANTI, for those who do not know what it is , is our annual technical symposium conducted by the 3rd yrs. People good at various fields lead a team consisting of many 2nd yrs to organize an event. There was this event called Code Debugging, lead by Karthik Raghavan, my senior. With not many interested in programming, both from my class as well as his, we could not avoid being in touch with each other. 


Discussing long hours of interesting programming questions, we decided to give the participants a tough time. Took the good old theoretical computer science books, designed challenging questions that were probably never asked in the history of any programming contest. Managed to give a list of NP-complete and NP-Hard problems, asking them to solve it. Hence was born the real interest in Computer Science.


One day, Karthik comes up and tells there is this exam called GATE, the expansion of which neither of us knew. He says he had written it with minimal preparation and that the paper was pretty easy. Then came the result and he stood All India 800. Karthik decided to write GATE again and better his performance with a little bit of serious preparation.Karthik, being a serious GRE aspirant, the news of GATE was pretty shocking. He now needed a bunch of serious aspirants with whom he can prepare. 


After long hours of convincing pawan and anish, a group was formed. Hence the PROPAGATE-CS was born.