Wednesday 23 May 2012

Written test and Interview at IIT Kanpur


         Written test was held at CSE department of IIT Kanpur on 7th may. I reached there on 5th May night and got accommodation in hall V.  IITK  is amazing, very big campus, well planned and well developed. You can find good quality food in mess at IITK.


         I reached at venue for test on 7th at 8 am. Exam was started at 8:45 am. There were 50 questions in written test and time duration was two-and-half hour. Questions were based on general aptitude, probability, discrete mathematics, digital and CO, more from DBMS, C language, TOC and Compiler. I found questions were a bit tricky and some easy one too. Later at 2:30 pm, they announced result. Approx. 60 students were shortlisted from GC. Interview was started quickly after that. but my turn was on next day.

           Later on my interview day, I reached there after lunch and met some students who are doing m tech there. They told me they are much interested to ask from algorithms and discrete mathematics.

Finally my turn came.....(It was my first interview in my entire life so I was little bit nervous )

          I entered into the interview room with my file along with all original documents.They offered me to sit.They had my college results' photocopy and my written test paper. There were 3 interviewer in-front of me.
         from them one(Dr. Sanjeev Saxeana) asked me first question...

Q1. You are 2011 passed out, where did you spend one year ?
A. I didn't want to tell about my coaching but I prefer honesty. I replied "I spent last year Hyderabad for coaching at ace academy".

Q2. Tell me which is your favourite subjects. 
A. dbms, data structure and algorithms, discrete mathematics.

Q3. Can tou tell me what is equivalence relation?
I replied correctly.

Q4. Can you give an example that relation which is not reflexive but symmetric and transitive?
I used black board to write answer. he said okay.

Q5. The given graph with N vertices and M edges, how many min and max edges can be there in spanning tree?
I felt that question was asked because they wanted to confuse me between min and max number of vertices but I quickly  replied "only n-1". He replied NO and was showing me his face like he was unhappy with my answer. but I told it's correct.
He asked me to prove it. I smiled and replied, I can't. he told me to try it, I made my algorithm randomly but I couldn't fulfill their expectations with my answer.

Q6. Can you define relationship between geometric mean and arithmetic mean? first tell me what is geometric mean and arithmetic mean.
I replied him correctly he agreed with my answer that I know what it is. I defined relationship between arithmetic and geometric mean but I could not explain(prove) it. I told him clearly that I am not good in writing proofs. he replied I will ask you proof only.

Q7. Is it correct, odd numbers square are also odd numbers ?
I said YES again. I needed to prove it also. I took 5 as odd number and gave him explanation like 52 means 5*5 means 5 times addition of 5 so odd times addition of 5 means odd. he smiled and asked me about one more proof. (this is not correct way to prove such thing, i should have used some variables.)

Q8. Can you prove addition of two odd numbers give you even number ?
I tried but I failed to prove. (It was an easy question but I had already lost my confidence due to the way he was delivering questions ).

Q9. Can you tell me any algorithm to find spanning tree from graph ?
I replied DFS and BFS. He said NO. I surprised because (it was obvious) you can find spanning tree with this algo. so I cleared question with him if you ask me minimum spanning tree then prims and kruskals. otherwise I am correct. but he was giving me expression like I was wrong and told me to write algo for DFS which it trivial.

after that they offered me to pick another subject. I replied him DBMS.

Q10. What is 2PL protocol?
I told him everything about 2PL and its phases and types.

Q11. Can you get conflict serializable  schedule with basic 2PL protocol ? 
I said yes. Then why should you study other protocol like multi-version 2PL protocol ? 
I replied to improve concurrency. They asked to show one schedule which obeying 2PL and having deadlock. I wrote an example but it was producing starvation not dead lock.

Q12. Do you know what is deadlock and startvation?
I replied yes. dead lock means the state from that you can never come back. but starvation is different thing. In starvation there is chance to come back from long waiting time. but my answer was not fully correct.

My interview was near about 35 min and I was very much tense and unhappy with myself because I told him about coaching. but later, result came (on 10th may) and I GOT SELECTED AT IITK. :) :)

23 comments:

  1. well done..!!
    Once again Congo.. :)

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  2. Very nice and helpful article. Also share your interview experiences of any other IIT.

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  4. @DJrocks
    That test was awesome bro and i think it was real gate paper... Clearing that test was itself an achievement.
    @I Probably Hate You
    I came from Marathi medium.. so please let me know if there are any gramatical or spelling mistakes

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  5. @Aman
    U r my partner bro.... in project and now in thesis too... :)

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  6. Hey I m Vaibhavi from gujarat currently in cse 3rd yr can you pls guide for starting gate preparations,some good books and which coaching classes can be preferred.

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    1. Take print out of GATE syllabus and start with your favorite subject and topic.
      for discrete mathematics, I will suggest you discrete mathematics and its application by Rosen.
      for Algorithm, First read all topics from cormen(GATE syllabus only) and try to solve previous year question, if you find any trouble while solving it, google it.
      for OS, GALVIN.
      for Network, tanenbaum.
      I had not referred any other books for any other subjects. I was just relay on coaching.

      I want to tell u that whatever u read , understand it completely and write it somewhere so later u can memorize it.while reading any topic think that what can be asked from that.
      GATE is an exam where u dont need to mag-up anything, so try to understand each topic and solve question in-and-around from that topic. it will increase ur confidence also.
      if y are not able to solve some question , dont check solution , google it and try to solve it with ur existence concepts.In starting phase, u will have to face some difficulties but later on u will be aware about tricks.
      If you put some decent effort then it is easy to get rank under 1000.

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    2. Okay thanks a lot for your guidance.
      For practice of mcqs in subjects like os,toc,network,algorithm previous year gate papers are sufficient??

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    3. nope... as u know every year they ask new concepts from different subjects... better to solve some different material.. gate questions ll be tricky...wont be lengthy... so while reading think which type of questions can be framed. and ya dont waste ur time to solve same type of questions.if u r from good college like nirma or DDIT u no need to much worry about gate... otherwise i can tell u that u need to learn alot for GATE...if u have time for 2 months in summer or december then go for coaching ... it ll give u whole idea.. what is content and what should u read... no need to spend one yr for gate..

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    4. Okk thnks den I ll go for coaching..

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  8. hey!thnx for the info.
    do u have any idea of interview at iitkgp?

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    1. It was a bit easy compare to Kanpur and was short in-terms of time. they asked me 2quesions from TOC (dont remember exactly). 2 from integration (very basic like 12th maths) and how to find area of square for given coordinate. I observed that mostly they were repeating questions(they asked similar to my fnds too). I answered all and were almost all correct.

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  9. Hey Good to see your experience,I got one quetion after reading,gate AIR 110 and 500 are eligble for the test,now they are compete each other or 110 scorer given high preference?

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    1. For IIT kanpur, I can say no... u need to clear first written test and then interview... what i felt is they gave preference to student who scored good in IITK written...anyways if ur interview would be too good then written score also doesn't matter..for other IIT, there is no written test so they are giving more preference toward AIR (specially IITkg)

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  10. Hey, very well written post :).

    My AIR is 780 (OBC). Can you please tell me how to prepare for tests/interviews. I mean , like we studied for GATE each and every subject, same should be done for these test/interviews ?


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    1. For Test, whatever you have studied for GATE , Can be enough. But for interview, you might need to study more. anyways in interview you are gonna be asked about your favorite subjects. but you should prepare discrete Maths and algorithms very well. Whatever maths equations and graph algorithm equations you have mug-up, you should read proof for that.
      IIT Kanpur as per I know, They will more concern about same interest between you and professor. If you will show your interest about some theory subjects (algo, maths, TOC) they will be more happy and will take more interest while taking interview. anyways If you are more good in other, it wont harm you. 'kenneth rosen' for discrete maths is such nice book.

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  11. thanks for sharing your experience with us. It was indeed a great read. For more information on GATE exams people could check out this link I found: http://thegateacademy.com/gate-2014-notification/

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  12. Thanks for the information.i just want to know how much role is our gate score is going to play to be selected in iit kanpur

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