• ALGORITHMS
I recommend to you to read this subject along with Discrete maths or
after you have completed discrete maths. I used only one book for this subject and found that to be more than enough for GATE.1>>”Introduction to Algorithms” By T.H.Cormen et al.
This is “THE” book for Algorithms. The Book is simply brilliant, it
makes you understand every details of Algorithms. So this book is a
must read. Although I did not read the entire thing. Here is the list
of chapters that I had read. If you are interested of course you can read the entire book.
Chapter 1,2,3,4[excluding 4.4],6,7[excluding 7.3],8,10,11[excluding
11.5],12[excluding 12.4],18,22,23,24[excluding 24.4 and 24.5] for
NP-Completeness you can read 34 also.
In addition to this book I strongly recommend you to see the video
lectures from MIT. The lectures are given by Lieserson[who BTW is also
one of the authors of CLRS] and Erik demaine. The lectures are
absolutely brilliant. You may download them from ocw.mit.edu• DATASTRUCTURES
I did not read this subject exclusively. I mostly participated in
discussions in Algorithms and datastructures communities on orkut .
That is i think more than enough.
• THEORETICAL COMPUTER SCIENCE
I initially tried to decipher Ullman’s book but I found the content
too much for my brain to comprehend. So I switched to “Introduction to Computer Theory” By Daniel Cohen. The contents in this book are lucid.
Also solving or atleast attempting the problems in the exercises is a
must. But its really great if you could read Ullman.• DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
I used Korth and Navathe for this. Initially I read korth because it
is lucid and then only for normalization i read Navathe. The database
design part in korth is difficult so read this part with utmost
concentration and you may require several readings before you begin to understand things.
• OPERATING SYSTEMS
Read this from following books:
1>>Operating System Concepts By Galvin et al.
2>>Stallings
Attempt problems in Stallings they are very important especially
problems on memory management and virtual memory. In Galvin the theory
on memory management is excellent.
• Digital Design
Read “Digital Design” By morris mano• COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE
Read this from following books
1>>”Computer Architecture” By Morris mano2>>”Computer Organization” By Zacky,hamacher
3>>”Computer Organization Hardware/Software Interface” By Hannessey
and Patterson
Read book 1 almost completely then read memory system from book 2 then
you can read
book 3, I had read only the performance measurement chapter from book
3 as it is not given in any other book and also solve numericals fromexercises they are very very important. I recommend you to read this
subject after “Digital Design”.
• COMPUTER NETWORKS
I had read this subject only from forouzan and had read some chapters
from Comer’s book. Attempt the exercises from forouzan they are
important.
• C programming
You read this from “the C programming language” by kernighan and
Ritchie that is more than enough plus spend some time in actually
programming in C that is the best way you can learn C.
• C++
I dont know C++ much and I did not read anything for C++. Dont be
spoiled, you can read C++ complete reference if you wish to.• Compiler Design
Did not read this subject at all. “People” say Ullman’s book is
excellent so you can read it from Ullman if you believe “People”.
In the final phase of your preps “try” to solve GATE papers.
The answers for the GATE papers are not present anywhere but still you should attempt them anyway. This will give you confidence that you can actually solve GATE.
You can read all the subjects given here you can skip one or two if
you dont have much time But more important thing is to “MASTER”
atleast 2 or 3 subjects. Also actively participate in discussions at
GATE CS or GATE CS/IT 2009 and Algorithms and Datastructures community in orkut.com that helps alot in patching few loopholes in our concepts and enhancing your problem solving skills. Thats it guys,this much is I think enough to crack GATE. You can ofcourse Device your own methods and set of books.Just be confident you can do it!
Please check this FB group where i uploaded many Solution Manuals of Important Books which people study for Gate
To get an Idea what Books to read you may read this blog post
This is personal website of this student http://lcm.csa.iisc.ernet.in/mayur/
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HOW TO CRACK GATE?
This is what I think is required to crack GATE.
1>>Good technical knowledge
2>>Good understanding of Basic Concepts
3>>Ability to apply the knowledge and concepts on variety of problems
To Develop 1 and 2 you will need to read and understand reference
books, to develop 3 you will need to solve the problems.
Now question is from where to get the problems or the MCQs, the answer is the problems are given at the back of every chapter in the reference books, you will need to solve those problems,may be not all of them.
Problems reveal lot of truth and clear our misconception and false
convictions.
And GATE has certain property that lot of Quesions in it
are based on concepts that are revealed in certain problems in
reference books. So its really really important to have a shot at the
problems.
Now here is the list of reference books that I used for preparation.
• DISCRETE MATHEMATICS
I started my preparation with discrete maths, and I would recommend
you also to start with this perticular subject because this is the
subject from where Computer Science spreads out. Understanding of this
subject is very important. I used following books:
1>>”Discrete maths and its applications” By Kenneth Rosen
This is an excellent book for GATE preps. Lot of problems are given at
the end of every chapter plus answers are also given to odd numbered
exercises. The explaination in this book is really very good and “easy to understand”. This book is must read for GATE preps.
2>>book by Tremblay and Manohar
I recommend you to read this book after you have read Rosen’s book.
The contents in this book is hard to comprehend. You need to have your
basics cleared before you attempt this book. This book is also a “must read”. I also have the lecture notes on discrete maths from some prof
at McGuire university the advanced counting and recurrence relation
part is good in these notes you can download them from my esnips
profile.