General Aptitude
General Aptitude carries 10 questions and 15 marks out of 100 - a high return per question, so accuracy here moves the rank as much as any technical section. GATE tests three strands: Verbal Ability (reading comprehension, sentence completion, grammar, vocabulary in context, narrative sequencing), Quantitative Aptitude (ratios, percentages, profit and loss, time–speed–distance, time and work, mensuration, geometry, data interpretation, series) and Analytical Aptitude (seating arrangement, blood relations, syllogisms, deduction, data sufficiency).
Rules that decide answers
- Percentage changes compose multiplicatively: a rise of 20% followed by a fall of 20% leaves 0.96 of the original, not 1.00.
- Profit and loss are measured against cost price; discount is measured against marked price. Never mix the two bases.
- Average speed over two equal distances is the harmonic mean 2xy/(x+y), not the arithmetic mean.
- In data interpretation, first fix the total and the unit (thousand, lakh, crore); most wrong options come from a unit slip, not from arithmetic.
Worked example
A trader marks goods 40% above cost and then offers a 25% discount. Take CP = 100, so marked price = 140 and selling price = 140 × 0.75 = 105. Profit = 5% on cost. Candidates who apply the discount to the cost price compute 140 − 25 = 115 and choose 15% - a standard distractor built on the wrong base.
Traps that cost marks
- Reading-comprehension options that are true in the world but not supported by the passage; inference questions need a conclusion drawn from the text, not a restatement.
- Data-sufficiency items where each statement alone is insufficient but the two together suffice - you must judge sufficiency, not compute the value.
- Vocabulary questions testing the word in context, where the common synonym is not the passage's meaning.