GATE Previous Year Question Paper Guide with Practice Plan

Where to get each GATE previous year question paper

Open the download page on the official GATE website of the current cycle. You will find two routes: a year wise list where each paper code has its question paper and answer key, covering 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025 among others, and a bulk download of question papers going back to 2007. Each organising IIT hosts the archive for its own cycle, so the newest site is the one to use.

The organising institute's archive is complete and free, so there is no reason to rely on retyped copies that may carry wrong keys.

The pattern you will be practising

Every paper has 10 General Aptitude questions worth 15 marks and 55 subject questions worth 85 marks, all in 180 minutes. Questions carry 1 or 2 marks. Multiple choice items have one right option and a penalty for a wrong pick; multiple select items can have one or more right options, with no penalty and no partial credit; numerical answer items need a typed value, usually accepted within a small range, with no penalty. Full details are on the GATE syllabus page.

What past GATE papers reveal

• Concept over memory: most subject questions test whether you can apply one idea cleanly, often with a short calculation.
• Numerical items are many: in most engineering papers a large share of marks comes from NAT items, so careless arithmetic costs more than guessing does.
• Engineering maths is steady: linear algebra, calculus, probability and differential equations appear in most cycles of the engineering papers.
• GA is predictable: grammar, short reading items, ratios, data from charts and spatial puzzles repeat in style from year to year.
• New papers have short archives: DA started recently and RA is new this cycle, so lean on related papers such as CS or EE for extra practice.

A practice routine for the final three months

1. Month one: solve old papers topic by topic. Pick one subject, collect its questions from five or six cycles and solve them in one sitting.
2. Month two: take one full paper each week in 180 minutes, on a computer, using only an on screen calculator.
3. Month three: a pair of complete recent cycle papers every week, with a full review the following day.

In every review, sort mistakes into three heaps: concept gaps, calculation slips and MCQ guesses that went wrong. Only the first heap needs new study; the other two need slower, cleaner working.

Practice items in the GATE style

The five items below are our own and do not come from any GATE paper.

1. GA, MCQ, 1 mark. A shop raises a price by 20% and then gives a 20% discount. Compared with the original, the final price is: 4% lower, unchanged, 4% higher, or 2% lower? Key: 4% lower.
2. GA, MCQ, 1 mark. Pick the word that best fits: The engineer was ____ about safety, checking every bolt twice. Options: casual, scrupulous, indifferent, hasty. Key: scrupulous.
3. Maths, NAT, 2 marks. A 2 by 2 matrix has eigenvalues 3 and 5. Type the value of its determinant. Key: 15.
4. Maths, MSQ, 2 marks. Which of these functions are continuous at x equal to 0: the absolute value of x, the sign function, x squared, 1 divided by x? Key: the absolute value of x and x squared.
5. Probability, NAT, 1 mark. Two fair coins are tossed. Type the probability of getting at least one head, to two decimal places. Key: 0.75.

Making the most of 2023, 2024 and 2025 papers

Save the three most recent cycles for full timed mocks, because they show the present balance of question formats best. Use older papers from the bulk archive for topic practice. If your paper's syllabus has been revised, skip questions on topics that no longer appear in the current syllabus file, and add practice on any new topics from your textbooks. Check your final mock scores against past qualifying marks on our GATE cut off page, and confirm on GATE eligibility that your year of study allows you to apply.