Ravi Shankar Mishra: Mock tests serve three important purposes (a) Introduces you to the interface and instructions of the GATE exam, this will be crucial to save time in actual exam as you alveady know basic navigation and answering methods. (2) Teaches you time management. Without proper time management, there is no way that you ean put up a good performance.You must learn where to save time and where to use it. (3) Helps you identify your weak areas and recurring mistakes. This is crucial to help you to fill the, loopholes in your preparation and also to teach you how to avoid silly mistakes in the actual exam. Please note that the rank you get in mock tests do not reflect your actual gate rank. So don't feel disappointed or less confident about your abilities. I never got in the Top1o ranks in any of the mock tests I appeared for and I never let it undermine my confidence. Solving previous year papers is a very important phase and a must for getting a good rank in the GATE exam. It gives three benetits:- 2) Since, most questions come from similar topics year after year in the GATE exam, you will get, acquainted with common gate questions (2) You will feel confident that you can crack GATE. (3) You will able to gauge whether you have completed all the sub-topics given in the GATE syllabus I would like to point out that solving only GATE papers is not going to help. The actual study plan should comprise of - Read Topie, Solve Gate Questions, Analyze your problematic areas and then Re- Read the topic. lso read the left-over sub-topics.