GATE Mathematics (MA): Paper, Cut-offs, Score & Syllabus

GATE Mathematics is one of only six papers in the exam with no Engineering Mathematics section. In Computer Science, Civil, Mechanical and a dozen others, 13 of the 85 subject marks are engineering mathematics; in MA there is no such section, because the whole paper is mathematics. All 85 marks are Calculus through Linear Programming, at a genuine postgraduate level.

It is also the paper whose qualifying bar moved most sharply in the last cycle. It sat on the statutory floor of 25 in both GATE 2024 and GATE 2025, then landed at 34.7 in GATE 2026. That is not a coincidence of marking — and section 3 explains exactly what it tells you about the people who sat it.

This article is about the Mathematics paper specifically: what is in it, what the qualifying mark and the GATE score actually measure, what the syllabus contains, and what IIT Madras has changed for GATE 2027.

If you have not sat GATE before, the general guide to the exam covers the rules common to all thirty papers — the marking scheme, eligibility and what a score is used for. This page assumes them.

Which year is this data from? The exam pattern, marking scheme, qualifying-mark formula, score formula, eligibility and fee are from the GATE 2026 Information Brochure published by IIT Guwahati. Candidate numbers and qualifying marks are from the official cut-off pages for GATE 2024, 2025 and 2026 — published by IISc Bengaluru, IIT Roorkee and IIT Guwahati respectively. The question-type breakdown is counted from the official GATE 2025 answer key.

GATE 2027 is organised by IIT Madras, and the syllabi have been revised. What changed for this paper is set out in section 5 below. This page is updated after each cycle rather than replaced, so the older figures stay here beside the new ones.

1. One exam, three destinations

Before the paper itself, the thing GATE is for. One score does three different jobs, and they do not treat it the same way.

What it is used for	How the score is treated
M.Tech, M.E., M.S. and M.Sc. at IITs, IISc, NITs and other centrally funded institutes	A three-year-old score is accepted. Many programmes carry a monthly stipend.
PhD admission at the same institutes	A three-year-old score is accepted, often directly after a bachelor’s degree.
Recruitment by public sector companies	Usually the current year’s score only.

That last row costs people a year. Your scorecard is valid for three years and institutes honour it; most PSU recruitment notices ask for the score from that year’s exam.

2. What is actually in the paper

Every GATE paper is the same shape: 65 questions, 100 marks, three hours, on a computer, in English. General Aptitude is 15 marks and is identical for all 30 papers; the remaining 85 are yours.

What differs between papers, and between years, is the mix of question types — and that mix decides how much of the paper you can attempt without risk. Here is GATE 2025 Mathematics, counted from the official answer key.

Section	Questions	Marks	Negative marking
General Aptitude — MCQ only	10	15	Yes, on every question
Subject — MCQ	24	36	Yes
Subject — MSQ	17	30	None
Subject — NAT	14	19	None
Total	65	100

Question type	What it is	Wrong answer costs
MCQ	Four options, exactly one correct	−1/3 on a 1-mark question, −2/3 on a 2-mark question
MSQ	One or more options correct	Nothing — but there is no partial credit either
NAT	Type the number; no options given	Nothing

49 of the 85 subject marks carried no penalty at all. In an MSQ or a NAT, a blank and a wrong answer score exactly the same — zero — so leaving one untouched costs precisely as much as an attempt that turns out wrong, and gains nothing.

MSQ carries its own trap in the other direction. With no partial credit, knowing two of four options are correct is worth nothing unless you can also rule on the other two. And an MSQ is not obliged to have more than one correct option: in GATE 2025 Mathematics, 1 of the 17 multiple-select questions had exactly one correct answer. Stopping after the first correct tick is how a well-prepared candidate scores zero.

One more line worth carrying: all 15 marks of General Aptitude are negatively marked, because the whole section is MCQ. It is the only part of the paper that is guaranteed to punish a guess.

3. What the qualifying mark actually is

Most people read the GATE cut-off as a target set by an examiner. It is not. It is a formula, and the brochure prints it:

Qualifying mark for the General category = max(25, min(40, μ + σ))

where μ is the mean and σ the standard deviation of the marks of everyone who appeared in that paper.

Two consequences follow immediately, and they change how you should read the number.

The cut-off is a description of the cohort, not of the paper’s difficulty. It is literally one standard deviation above the average mark. If it comes out low, the average candidate scored low; if it comes out high, they scored well.

And it is clamped between 25 and 40. A paper whose μ + σ falls below 25 publishes 25 anyway, and one whose μ + σ exceeds 40 publishes 40. When you see either of those exact numbers, the formula has been overruled by the floor or the ceiling, and the published figure tells you nothing about the cohort beyond “below 25” or “above 40”. The ceiling is recent: in GATE 2024 six papers qualified above 40, with one at 49.0. Since GATE 2025 no paper has exceeded 40.

Year	Registered	Appeared	Turnout	Cut-off (GEN)	OBC-NCL / EWS	SC / ST / PwD
GATE 2024	17,617	13,425	76.2%	25	22.5	16.6
GATE 2025	16,953	13,171	77.7%	25	22.5	16.6
GATE 2026	16,272	11,561	71.0%	34.7	31.2	23.1

The other two columns are not set separately. The brochure fixes them by ratio: OBC-NCL and EWS at 9/10 of the General mark, and SC, ST and PwD at 2/3 of it. Published figures are rounded to one decimal, so the arithmetic can look 0.1 out; the rule itself is exact.

What the Mathematics numbers actually say. The bar sat on the floor of 25 in 2024 and 2025, which tells you μ + σ was below 25 in both years — the average candidate plus a full standard deviation did not reach a quarter of the paper. In 2026 it came out at 34.7, nearly ten marks higher and comfortably inside the formula’s range. Something changed in how the cohort performed, and the published number is the evidence rather than the explanation.

Turnout is the other half of the story. Only 71.0% of registered candidates sat GATE 2026 Mathematics — among the lowest of any paper.

4. What a GATE score actually means

A GATE score is not your marks, and it is not a percentile. It is a linear rescaling with two fixed anchors, and once you know them the whole thing is readable:

• A score of 350 is exactly the qualifying mark. If you scraped through, you scored 350.
• A score of 900 is the average of the top 0.1% of candidates in your paper (or the top 10, whichever is larger).

Everything between is a straight line. The formula in the brochure is GATE Score = 350 + 550 × (your marks − Mq) ÷ (top-0.1% average − Mq), where Mq is the General-category qualifying mark.

This is why a score is comparable across papers in a way that marks are not. Two candidates on 700 in different subjects sit at the same point between their own paper’s bar and its top. It is also why the score depends on how well the best candidates did that year: if the top 0.1% average is lower, the same marks are worth more.

The scorecard is valid for three years. Institutes honour that; most public sector companies do not — their recruitment notices usually ask for the current year’s score. If a PSU job is the goal, the year you sit is part of the plan.

5. The syllabus, and what changes in GATE 2027

Eleven blocks, flat, with no published weighting between them. The paper draws across the list and is under no obligation to divide the 85 marks evenly.

Two features are worth planning around. Calculus and Linear Algebra are not standalone topics — they are the machinery every other block is worked in, so a gap there costs a fraction of every question rather than one block’s worth. And Functional Analysis, Topology and Linear Programming sit at the end of most degree courses and at the end of most candidates’ preparation, which is precisely what makes them the cheapest marks in the paper.

What IIT Madras changed for GATE 2027

The GATE 2027 Mathematics syllabus keeps the same eleven areas but now numbers them formally as Sections 1 to 11, and the text within several of them has been expanded — Calculus now names Taylor’s theorem, Jacobians and change of variables explicitly, and Linear Algebra names the minimal polynomial and Jordan canonical form. Nothing has been removed and no new area has appeared.

Read your own year’s syllabus before you buy a book. The 2027 revision is mostly a clarification for Mathematics — but it is a substantial rewrite in Physics and Chemistry, and a candidate working from a three-year-old coaching module has no way of knowing which.

6. Who may sit it, and what it costs

Rule	What it says
Qualifying degree	Currently in the third year or higher of any undergraduate degree, or already holding one.
Degree subject	Need not match the paper. You choose the paper; the admitting institute sets its own subject requirements.
Age limit	None.
Attempts	No limit.
Two papers	You may sit up to two papers in one cycle, from the published list of allowed combinations.
Application fee (per paper)	₹1,000 for female, SC, ST and PwD candidates · ₹2,000 for everyone else. Both rise by ₹500 in the extended period.

The third-year rule is worth acting on rather than noting. You do not need the degree in hand, and a good score obtained in your third year is valid for three years — which covers the entire window in which you might want to use it.

7. What this paper is asking for

1. Attempt every MSQ and every NAT. Forty-nine of the 85 subject marks carried no penalty in GATE 2025. A blank there is a mark you chose not to try for.
2. Check every option on an MSQ. There is no partial credit, and one of the seventeen MSQs in GATE 2025 had exactly one correct option — stopping after the first correct tick is how a well-prepared candidate scores zero.
3. Be disciplined in the MCQs and nowhere else. They are the only part of the paper — along with all 15 marks of General Aptitude — where a guess costs you anything.
4. Do not ignore General Aptitude. Fifteen marks, no mathematics in it, identical for every paper in GATE, and every one of those marks is negatively marked.
5. Read the cut-off as information about the cohort. Two years on the floor followed by 34.7 tells you the 2026 cohort scored dramatically better, not that the paper got harder.
6. Aim at a score, not at the bar. 350 is the bar. Admission to a good programme needs a good deal more than that.

The syllabus is public and every candidate has the same one. In a paper this uniformly weighted, what separates results is how many of the penalty-free marks you actually collect.