GATE 2026 February 7 Shift 1 Analysis: Students find MTech Paper 1 moderate overall, GA easy

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati has conducted the first shift of the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE 2026) exam on February 7 at 12:30 pm, covering the first batch of nine papers. As per students’ reactions, the GATE 2026 February 7 shift 1 question paper was of moderate difficulty. Candidates found the general aptitude section the easiest, while the core section was rated moderate. GATE 2026 Feb 7 Exam LIVE

According to the students' analysis, the Engineering Sciences (XE) paper of the GATE 2026 exam was of a moderate to difficult level. While the General Aptitude (GA) section was easy – focused on conventional topics such as dice, Pythagoras theorem, and age-distance related problems.

The core engineering science sections were rated as moderate. The mathematics section within the XE paper was challenging, with the questions ranging from moderate to difficult.

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GATE 2026 Feb 1 shift 1 analysis

The exam paper emphasised conceptual understanding and numerical applications, and allocated higher weightage to topics such as fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, and materials science.

This year, a new section paper, energy science (XE-I), was introduced. Some questions, particularly in the XE-E section, were lengthy, and the paper included several assertion-based questions.

The XE-D exam paper was of moderate difficulty; the general aptitude section was easy and reflected questions from previous Mechanical GATE exam papers.

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GATE 2026 February 7 Shift 1: Subject-wise paper analysis

Candidates can have a look at the GATE Feb 7 shift 1 analysis based on student reaction and the Careers360 experts below.