Self-inspiration helped me crack GATE and ESE, both!

Madhukant Goyal
AIR – 11 (GATE 2018)
AIR-62 (ESE 2018)

College: 
NIT Jamshedpur (B. Tech)

Branch: Civil Engineering
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First of all, I would like to thank my family and teachers, who have always supported me throughout this journey. I belong to a poor family so it was very difficult to afford my education expenditure but my father always told me: “Don’t think much about the money. You just focus on your study and do whatever you want to do!”.

Today after getting a good rank in GATE and ESE, everyone tells my father that “Aapke bete ne aapka name roshan kar diya! (Your son has made you proud sir!)” . It is a very proud and emotional moment for me.

Fuel of journey

To be honest, initially I had never thought of clearing these exams. All I had thought of is to support my family after getting a job.

I was selected in Larsen and Toubro construction from campus placement and I was very happy. But after joining L&T, I didn’t find myself comfortable and I always used to talk to myself and tell that “What are you doing Goyal, this is not a place for you. You can do much better in life.”

After all these thoughts, finally one day I resigned and started preparing for these exams. It was a big step for me since my role was very important in my family. There was no external motivation for me to crack these exams, but I had a lot of self-motivation. I feel self-motivation is the biggest motivation ever. With it, anything is possible to achieve.

I got AIR-11 in GATE 2018. It was my second attempt. Before GATE-2018, I had appeared in GATE-2016. Along with GATE, I got AIR-62 in ESE 2018 in my first attempt.

When I appeared for the GATE-2016, I was in final year of college. I got AIR 2037 in GATE-2016. Today, I feel that I had lack of guidance (how to prepare for GATE) in college, otherwise results would have been better at that time only.

Preparation Details

Those who want to prepare for both GATE and ESE, I would suggest that prepare for any one exam primarily, preferably ESE. Because syllabus for ESE is more than GATE. So, technical portion for GATE will be covered automatically. And to practice for GATE online calculator, there is one-month gap between ESE prelims and GATE, so you can do it at that time.

Now, to target ESE prelims, first of all I covered class notes and after that I solved previous year question paper. This will help you to know the types of question being asked in prelims. I never used calculator (because calculators are not allowed in ESE prelims) while solving previous year papers and that helped to improve my calculation and speed also.

Revision and test series, these are the two things that will help you to crack any exam. Even before test series was started, I used to continuously revise topics which have been covered and it helped me to remember most of the formulas.

In September, though my syllabus was not over yet, I started writing test series and there was test on each Sunday so now I got only a week to prepare for each upcoming test. Since the time was limited, so I decided to solve only previous year again as per upcoming test syllabus.

Again, doing continuous revision helped me a lot. Due to regular revision since the beginning, it was very easy for me to have all the formulas in mind. To sum up, I just focused on previous year paper, regular revision and test series. In this way I prepared for ESE prelims.

After ESE prelims , from the very next day I started preparing for the GATE. I had already covered all the topics, only I had to practice some aptitude. For one month , I only solved GATE previous year and appeared for the online test series. Writing Full-Length-Test in exam like scenario helped me to boost my confidence for actual GATE.

After GATE exam, I took rest for 10 days and after that started preparing for the ESE mains.

For ESE mains also, first I solved ESE conventional previous year and then revising the same previous year papers again during Test series. To other aspirants of ESE, I would like to suggest not to neglect the theory part. Make a schedule for that and start reading, writing theoretical questions.

3 Pillers of success

So, if I was asked 3 most important things to manage for both ESE and GATE preparation together is:
• Previous year papers
• Revision
• Test series

Doing these diligently will definitely help you to crack both of these exams.

Aspirants make one of the biggest mistakes by not revising topics timely. They think that revision is something which is to be done only in the end. And in the end,  there are bulk of notes to revise, which leads to frustrated and panic.

Lastly, I would like to advise all the aspirants to think of each and every test series paper as your actual paper and appear for it seriously.

“There is nothing like smart work, It is just the experienced hard work.”

Wish You all the best. Thank You!