The primary purpose of the GATE (Graduate aptitude test in engineering) exam for candidates is to provide eligibility to get admissions into colleges of engineering for post-graduate programs. The foremost objective of Indian Engineering Services (IES) is to provide eligibility for getting a Government job in the field of engineering and departments which comes under the Government of India.

Lakhs of candidates complete their engineering/technology courses in various branches of engineering every year. Many amongst them prepare for GATE and IES in order of getting admission into the M.Tech or PhD program and getting group A/B jobs in the Government department respectively. Some candidates prepare GATE while some IES but there are also candidates who plan for both these exams simultaneously. There are many reasons why candidates prepare for both of these exams simultaneously. A few of them are:

1. It opens two doors of opportunity for a candidate – post-graduation and a Government filed job.
2. It’s a chance to save a whole year for those who want to prepare for IES just after clearing the GATE examination.
3. The GATE exam preparation covers almost 70% of the total practice required for the IES exam.
4. Preparing for two high-level exams with nearly the same syllabus helps in preparing both exams directly or indirectly.

As per the daily analysis, 1/2 or 1-hour preparation for General English, General aptitude & Mathematics like sections is sufficient if you prepare them regularly for 7 or 8 months. These sections have 30% weightage in most of the GATE papers. So daily 1/2 or 1-hour preparation would be sufficient to cover this weightage. Investing too much of your valuable time in these subjects will reduce your preparation time in the technical subjects.

While you prepare the Non-Technical subjects, keep in mind that General Aptitude, Mathematics is common in both exams, i.e., GATE & IES. So practise this subject for both exams simultaneously to save your time.

For technical subjects, daily 7-hour preparation regularly for eight months is sufficient to pass the GATE/IES examination. This section contains 70% weightage of total marks in the GATE exam. Therefore, this section requires more time and attention for preparation as compared to the other areas.

While preparing for technical subjects for the GATE exam, keep in mind that you need to prepare the objective as well as a subjective section for a particular subject. So when you prepare for a specific subject follow the syllabus of GATE as well as IES and solve previous years the objective question of GATE as well as IES exams.

For the IES examination, you need to prepare for conventional paper too. So while preparing for the objective section, prepare the conventional division of a particular subject simultaneously. It saves your time to prepare all the subjects again for conventional papers from the start.

There are six technical subjects which you haven’t prepared because these subjects are the part of IES syllabus only. These are Materials and Components, Electronic Measurements and instrumentation, Computer Engineering, Basic Electrical Engineering, Advanced Electronics Topics & Advanced Communication Topics. You need to prepare these subjects for the conventional paper for the IES exam.

Though you have four months to prepare for the conventional paper just after finishing the GATE exam, for the IES exam if you prepare the conventional section along with the objective part it’ll not only help you in preparation but also in the objective area. It benefits you by doubling your practice in a single effort.