Indian Institutes of Technology -- Kanpur, Bombay, Delhi, Guwahati, Kharagpur, Madras, Roorkee -- and Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore conducted online Graduate Aptitude Test for engineering (GATE) for two papers on February 7.
Prof Rajat Moona of IIT-K, chairman GATE-2010, said that about 49,500 students registered for the exam under Kanpur zone this year, out of which 212 students registered for the online examination in Textile Engineering and Fibre Science (TF) and Mining Engineering (MN) papers. This experiment was conducted in this year for the first time and depending upon the experience, online examination might be repeated on a larger scale in subsequent years. There is a need to move with the technology, said Prof S G Dhande, director IIT, Kanpur.
Prof Moona said that GATE is conducted in 21 different subjects. In 2010, examinations in two of the subjects, namely Textile Engineering and Fibre Science (TF), and Mining Engineering (MN) were conducted using computers at all the IITs. About 1,700 candidates were registered for these papers, who appeared for these two exams in two shifts.
Under IIT-K, about 200 candidates wrote the examination at two centres in the city.
All papers of GATE should be online like TF and MN because it provides an excellent environment during the exam, said a candidate, who appeared in the TF paper. There were no glitches and the examination was conducted in an extremely candidate-friendly environment, said an official involved in the examination process.
The offline version of the exam in other 19 papers would be conducted all over the country on Feb 14, 2010, added Prof Moona.
