GATE CS 2027 · Official Syllabus
Syllabus Manager
Complete GATE CS & IT 2027 syllabus — ordered from most important to least important, with deep topic breakdowns, pro tips, and all exam rules you need to know.
100Total Marks
65Total Questions
3 hrsDuration
CBTExam Mode
10 SecCore Subjects
3 yrsScore Validity
GATE 2027 — Overview & Rules
Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering — Everything you need to know before you start preparing.
What is GATE?
Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) is a national-level exam for admission to M.Tech / M.E / M.S / Ph.D programs and PSU recruitment.
Eligibility
- Final-year UG students in Engineering / Technology
- Graduates in Engineering, Technology, Architecture or Science
- No age limit
Score Validity
3 years from the date of result declaration. Valid for all IITs, NITs, IIITs and PSU recruitments.
Exam Pattern
- Mode: Computer Based Test (CBT)
- Duration: 3 Hours
- General Aptitude: 15 marks (10 questions)
- Core CS Subjects: 85 marks (55 questions)
- Question Types: MCQ, MSQ, NAT
- Negative Marking: Yes — MCQs only
Negative Marking Rules
- 1-mark MCQ: −⅓ mark
- 2-mark MCQ: −⅔ mark
- MSQ & NAT: No negative marking
Marks & Score Range (2024 data)
- Max Marks: 100 | Min Marks: −13.33
- Max Score: 1000 | Min Score: −96
- Score = 1000 × (M − Mmin) / (Mavg + Mmax − 2×Mmin)
Cut-off & Qualifying Marks
Reference data from GATE CS+IT 2025. Expect similar values for 2027.
Minimum Qualifying Marks — GATE CS 2025 (out of 100)
| Category | Qualifying Marks |
|---|
| General / EWS | 29.2 / 100 |
| OBC-NCL | 26.2 / 100 |
| SC / ST / PWD | 19.4 / 100 |
IIT Bombay — GATE Cut-off for CS+IT 2025 (Score / 1000)
| Category | Qualifying GATE Score |
|---|
| General / EWS | 750 |
| OBC-NCL | 675 |
| SC / ST / PWD | 500 |
IIT (ISM) Dhanbad — GATE Cut-off for CS+IT 2025 (Score / 1000)
| General | OBC | EWS | SC | ST |
|---|
| 792 | 731 | 757 | 652 | 536 |
PSU Cut-offs — CS & IT (General Category, Approx. Marks/100)
| Public Sector Undertaking | Approx. Cut-off (Marks) |
|---|
| NTPC (CSE) | ≈ 52 marks |
| MNGL | ≈ 82 marks |
| GAIL (CSE) | ≈ 77 marks |
| IOCL (CSE) | ≈ 69 marks |
| Power Grid (CS/IT) | ≈ 67.9 marks |
Syllabus — Ordered by Importance
Sections ranked #1–#10 based on historical GATE CS weightage. Attack the top ranks first.
- Searching (Binary, Linear)
- Sorting (Merge, Quick, Heap, Bubble)
- Hashing & Hash tables
- Asymptotic notation (O, Θ, Ω)
- Time & Space complexity
- Greedy algorithms
- Dynamic programming
- Divide and conquer
- Graph traversals (BFS, DFS)
- Minimum spanning trees (Kruskal, Prim)
- Shortest paths (Dijkstra, Bellman-Ford, Floyd-Warshall)
- Recurrence relations & Master theorem
💡 Pro Tip: Dynamic programming and graph algorithms appear every year. Master Dijkstra vs Bellman-Ford tradeoffs. Solving 2–3 GATE PYQs per topic is more effective than re-reading notes.
- Programming in C
- Recursion & stack frames
- Arrays (1D, 2D)
- Stacks
- Queues (simple, circular, deque)
- Linked Lists (singly, doubly, circular)
- Binary Trees
- Binary Search Trees
- Binary Heaps (min/max)
- Graphs (adjacency list/matrix)
- Hash maps in DSA
- Tree traversals (in/pre/post/level)
💡 Pro Tip: GATE loves tricky pointer and recursion questions in C. Practice tracing code output. For trees — always know height, node count and traversal complexities by heart.
- System calls
- Processes & PCB
- Threads & multithreading
- IPC (pipes, shared memory, semaphores)
- Concurrency & synchronization
- Deadlock (detection, prevention, avoidance, recovery)
- CPU Scheduling (FCFS, SJF, Round Robin, Priority)
- I/O Scheduling
- Memory management
- Paging & segmentation
- Virtual memory & page replacement
- File systems (FAT, inode)
💡 Pro Tip: Deadlock (Banker's algorithm), CPU scheduling calculations, and page replacement (LRU, FIFO, Optimal) are exam favourites. Always solve numericals — they appear as 2-mark NAT questions.
- OSI & TCP/IP model layers
- Packet, circuit & virtual-circuit switching
- Data link layer (framing, error detection)
- MAC protocols & Ethernet
- Routing protocols (Distance Vector, Link State)
- IP addressing & subnetting
- IPv4, CIDR notation
- ARP, DHCP, ICMP
- NAT (Network Address Translation)
- TCP vs UDP
- Flow control & congestion control
- DNS, HTTP, SMTP, FTP, Email
💡 Pro Tip: Subnetting, TCP sliding window, and routing algorithms (Dijkstra for Link State) appear almost every year. Practice IP address calculations until they feel automatic.
- Regular expressions
- DFA & NFA
- NFA to DFA conversion
- Minimization of DFA
- Context-free grammars (CFG)
- Push-down automata (PDA)
- Regular languages & pumping lemma
- CFL & pumping lemma
- Turing machines
- Decidability & Undecidability
- Halting problem
- Chomsky normal form
💡 Pro Tip: TOC questions are largely conceptual. Pumping lemma (both regular and CFL), decidability, and DFA minimization are repeated. A single good textbook (Sipser or Ullman) is enough.
- Propositional logic
- First order logic
- Sets, relations & functions
- Partial orders & Lattices
- Monoids & Groups
- Graph theory basics
- Combinatorics & counting
- Recurrence relations
- Generating functions
- Matrices & Determinants
- Eigenvalues & eigenvectors, LU decomp.
- Limits, continuity, differentiation, integration
- Maxima & minima, Mean value theorem
- Probability distributions (Normal, Binomial, Poisson)
- Bayes theorem & conditional probability
💡 Pro Tip: Discrete maths (propositional logic, graph theory, combinatorics) has the highest weightage within Engineering Maths. Linear algebra and probability are straightforward with practice — don't skip them.
- Lexical analysis & tokenization
- Top-down parsing (LL)
- Bottom-up parsing (LR, SLR, LALR, CLR)
- First & Follow sets
- Syntax-directed translation
- Runtime environments
- Intermediate code generation
- Three-address code
- Local optimisation
- Constant propagation
- Liveness analysis
- Common sub-expression elimination
💡 Pro Tip: First/Follow sets and SLR/LALR parsing table construction are the most tested. Spend time on grammar classification — a 2-mark question can hinge on whether a grammar is LL(1) or not.
- ER model & ER diagrams
- Relational model
- Relational algebra
- Tuple & domain calculus
- SQL (DDL, DML, DCL, TCL)
- Integrity constraints
- Functional dependencies
- Normal forms (1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF)
- File organization
- Indexing (B-tree, B+ tree)
- Transactions (ACID properties)
- Concurrency control (2PL, timestamp)
💡 Pro Tip: Normalization (finding candidate keys, checking BCNF) and SQL queries with GROUP BY, HAVING, and nested subqueries are exam staples. B+ tree height questions appear as NAT — practice them.
- Machine instructions & addressing modes
- ALU design
- Data-path & control unit
- Instruction pipelining
- Pipeline hazards (structural, data, control)
- Cache memory (direct, associative, set-associative)
- Cache replacement policies
- Main memory & RAM
- Secondary storage
- I/O interface (interrupt driven)
- DMA mode
💡 Pro Tip: Cache mapping (direct, fully associative, set-associative) and pipeline speedup calculations are frequent. Learn to calculate EMAT (Effective Memory Access Time) — it's a classic NAT question.
- Boolean algebra & identities
- Combinational circuits (MUX, demux, adder)
- Sequential circuits (flip-flops, counters, registers)
- Circuit minimization (K-map, Quine-McCluskey)
- Number representations (2's complement, BCD)
- Fixed & floating point arithmetic
💡 Pro Tip: Digital Logic is relatively low-weightage but quick to prepare. K-map minimization and 2's complement arithmetic are easy marks — don't skip this section entirely.