I completed my B.Tech from NIT, Surat (2019), though I had a Pre-Placement Offer from Larsen and Toubro and admit from Purdue University for Master’s Degree, I decided to stay in India and prepare for GATE examination.
Many of my friends were preparing for GATE examination from their third year of engineering, but most of them couldn’t get a decent rank in GATE examination. So, I was in a dilemma, if I could crack it in my very first attempt.
I had seen my friends going to offline classes for GATE, but most of the classes used to have timings from 8 am to 8 pm, after which they had no energy left in them to practice some questions on the topic they learned that day. Moreover, they used to have very few breaks in those classroom coaching, and so they never got time to refresh themselves mentally and absorb what was being taught to them, most of them were just taking down notes.
There are many classroom coaching institutes in India, but I decided to take Exergic’s Learn + Solve Combo for my preparation. When I saw their website, I learned that they have just started in this field, (I guess from 2016) and there were not many people in my circle who knew about them. But since they are new, (and Chandresh Mahajan quit his IOCL job for this), I knew his team is going the extra mile and doing what others won’t.
Firstly, the course delivery is fantastic (sample videos are uploaded on YouTube). The videos are properly shot, and I guess they have a script, I haven’t seen him going off the topic. Also, the videos are properly edited, you won’t find that the microphone is having some issues or camera not focusing properly, moreover, his team also cuts the video in which he is rubbing the whiteboard just to have complete focus of the student.
Secondly, the conceptual clarity is great. Many of you might know that the Carnot cycle is the best cycle amongst all the ideal cycles, but the reason is not known to many. There are many such places, where he will give the complete reasoning to all such questions.
Thirdly, each video is about 15-20 minutes, so you can listen, and after the end of every video can take 2 minutes to see what was being taught and if you have correctly understood it. If not you can replay that video as many times as you want until you clearly understand it. And since this is an Online (completely uploaded) coaching, so one can take a break according to his/her mental capability and can come back later once his/her head is clear and ready to learn even more.
Finally, Chandresh sir, to keep in touch, conducts live session on the Facebook groups, wherein he addresses all the issues faced by students, gives updates on course, discusses strategy and motivates students. All the study related doubts are cleared on Facebook group of respective subjects. There are many updates coming daily, like some examples are added to a particular topic, or something related to update in the personal study plan.
The flaws which I felt were, firstly, a student wants to get their doubt cleared as early as possible, but since it is an online mode of coaching, one cannot directly ask his doubt, you have to post it on the Facebook page, and Chandresh sir visits those pages once or twice a day, so you might not get an immediate response, but many of the students on these groups have appeared GATE more than once, so most of the time any numerical related doubt is cleared easily. Also, Chandresh sir is very strict about his video sharing/ copying/ piracy-related stuff, so when I switched my laptop my a/c was frozen for 2/3 days, but his team expeditiously reviewed my a/c (that means for everyone) and I got back my access. Many older users might have written that the Solve combo don’t have video solutions in them, but recently Chandresh sir has started giving video solutions and analysis for the questions, he even points out the important concept, that many students might have missed.
Your college professors can and will build all the concept, the need for coaching arises because GATE is a competitive examination, and as a GATE/ PSU aspirant, it would be foolish to devote equal time on metallurgy and TOM. It’s difficult to know which topic has higher probability of being asked in GATE, and coaching institutes do this job very well.