Authorities have recently revised the GATE Exam Pattern. Many new papers (subjects) have been added to the paper. The exam pattern provides details about the number of questions to be asked in the paper, number of sections, marking scheme, and duration of the exam. GATE stands for Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering. Through this exam, candidates are selected for admission to  M.E./ M.Tech/ Direct Ph.D programmes in IITs, NITs, GFTI, and various private institutions. This examination is also considered by many organizations for recruitment purposes. In this post, all the necessary details related to the GATE Exam pattern are provided.

GATE Exam Pattern 2024

The following are the changes made in the GATE Exam pattern by the authorities recently.

• Now, the GATE exam is conducted for 27 subjects (2 new subjects are added).
• It is an online exam (Computer based test)
• In order to create opportunity in the inter – disciplinary areas, candidates are allowed to appear for the exam in more than one subjects. So, students can appear for one or two subjects in the GATE exam.
• Two new subjects added in the GATE examination are Environmental Science & Engineering (ES) and Humanities & Social Sciences (XH).
• Previous year, Bio-medical Engineering (BM) subject was added in the GATE syllabus.

GATE Examination Pattern

The pattern of GATE examination is given below.

• Type of questions – Multiple-Choice Questions (MCQs), Multiple Select Questions (MSQ) and Numerical Answer Type (NAT) questions.
  • In MCQs – Candidates have to choose one correct options out of all available options.
  • In MSQs – Aspirants are required to multiple answers because more than one correct answers are possible.
  • Numerical Answer Type (NAT) questions – In these questions, candidates need to enter the answer correctly using the keyboard.
• Number of question – 65 (10 General questions + 55 subject based questions)
• Maximum Marks – 100
• Duration of the exam – 3 hours
• Number of sections – 2 (Common General Aptitude – GA (for all subjects/ papers) & Core subjects. The questions in core subjects are further classified into compulsory and optional.

Subjects and Papers in GATE

The subjects in the GATE exam are classified on the basis of the codes given to them as shown in the following table.

Note: Please note that the paper of CE, CS, EE, EC, and ME may take place in multiple sessions. However, a candidate is allowed to appear only in one specific session only.

Exam Pattern for Various Papers

• For AE, AG, BT, BM, CE, CH, CS, EC, EE, IN, ME, MN, MT, PE, PI, TF and XE
  • Mathematics – 15% of the total marks
  • General Aptitude – 15% of the total marks
  • Core subjects – 70% of the total marks
• AR, CY, EY, GG, MA, PH, ST, XH and XL
  • General Aptitude – 15% of the total marks
  • Core Subjects – 85% of the total marks
• In general aptitude section, 5 questions will carry 1 mark and 5 questions will carry 2 marks.
• All question papers other than GG, XE, and XL will carry 25 questions of 1 mark and 30 questions of 2 marks.

For XH Paper (Newly Added Paper)

Those candidates appearing for XH (Humanities and Social Sciences) need to attempt the following sections.

• General Aptitude – This paper will carry 15 marks
• Paper B1 (Compulsory) – Reasoning & Comprehension (compulsory section) – This compulsory section will carry 25 marks.
• Optional papers of XH (C1 to C6) – Candidates have to select one section out of these 6 optional sections. The optional section will carry 60 marks.
• Subject-wise code of XH paper is given below.

For XE Paper

Candidates appearing for XE paper need to appear for the following section.

• General Aptitude – 15 marks
• Paper A (Compulsory) – Engineering Mathematics (compulsory section) – This section contain 11 questions (7 questions of 1 mark and 4 questions of 2 marks)
• Any two optional papers of XE (B to H) – There are total 7 sections (B, C, D, E, F, H). Candidates need to choose two optional sections. Each section will have 35 marks. There will be 22 questions in each section. 9 will carry 1 mark and 13 will carry 2 marks.

XL Paper

Candidates appearing for the XL paper need to attempt the following sections.

• General Aptitude – This section will carry 15 marks.
• Paper P (Compulsory) – Chemistry (compulsory section) – 15 questions (5 questions will carry 1 mark and 10 questions will carry 2 marks)
• Any two optional papers of XL (Q to U) – There are five optional sections from Q to U. Candidates have to attempt any two of them. Each section will carry 30 marks each. There will be 20 questions in each section. 10 questions of 1 mark and 10 questions of 2 mark.

XL paper of GATE has the following sections

Note: Students can choose the sections as per their choice during the examination.

For GG Paper 

The exam pattern for the GG Paper is explained in the following table.

Marking Scheme in Gate

• There will be negative marking in Multiple choice questions. There is no provision for negative marking in numerical answer type questions.
• For 1 mark questions, 1/3 is deducted in case of an incorrect answer.
• For 2 mark questions, 2/3 is deduced in case of an incorrect answer.