got 11–13 marks in GATE without preparation — can a serious drop year still get me a good rank?
I attempted both GATE 2025 and GATE 2026 without serious preparation and scored around 11–13 marks. Now I’m thinking of taking a proper drop year and preparing seriously for GATE 2027.
I want to know if anyone here was in a similar situation — like scoring very low initially but later improving a lot with one dedicated year of preparation.
Is it realistically possible to get a good rank from this stage if I prepare consistently for 1 year?
How many hours did you study daily?
What strategy/resources helped you the most?
I’m from CSE background and planning to build basics first (C, DS, Digital Logic, etc.) before moving fully into core subjects.
Would really appreciate honest experiences and advice from people who actually improved after a bad start.