STUDY MATERIAL · GATE CS
GATE Computer Organization previous year questions and notes
Every Computer Organization and Architecture question from 10 GATE papers (2018–2026), solved step by step and checked against the organising institute’s official answer key — with notes for each topic, a formula sheet and practice questions.
- previous-year questions
- 58previous-year questions
- worked solutions, checked against the key
- 57worked solutions, checked against the key
- GATE papers, 2018–2026
- 10GATE papers, 2018–2026
- topics with notes
- 5topics with notes
TOPICS
Five topics, in the order they are taught
Cut from the official GATE 2027 syllabus. Each topic has notes, the formulas you need, every previous-year question on it with a checked solution, and practice questions.
- TOPIC 01
Instruction sets and addressing modes
Instruction sets and addressing modes define how a CPU encodes which operation to perform and where its operands are.
11 previous-year questions · 18 marks · 5 practice
- TOPIC 02
ALU design and the control unit: hardwired and microprogrammed
A CPU executes an instruction as a sequence of register transfers.
5 previous-year questions · 6 marks · 5 practice
- TOPIC 03
Memory hierarchy, performance and cache mapping
A memory hierarchy gives the processor close to cache speed at close to main-memory cost per bit, and it works because programs show locality of reference.
22 previous-year questions · 39 marks · 5 practice
- TOPIC 04
I/O interface: interrupts and DMA
I/O interfacing bridges the speed gap between a fast CPU and much slower I/O devices.
8 previous-year questions · 8 marks · 6 practice
- TOPIC 05
Instruction pipelining and pipeline hazards
Instruction pipelining overlaps the execution of successive instructions by splitting the datapath into stages.
12 previous-year questions · 20 marks · 5 practice
WHERE THE QUESTIONS FALL
58 questions, by topic and year
Counts across the CS papers of each year. A count of what was asked, not a forecast of what will be. The topic tags are IAE’s reading of each question, and every question links back to its paper.
| Topic | 2018 | 2020 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instructions & addressing | 2 | 1 | · | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 11 |
| ALU & control unit | · | 2 | 1 | · | · | 2 | · | 5 |
| Memory & cache | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 22 |
| I/O, interrupts & DMA | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
| Pipelining | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 12 |
GATE CSE question papers with solutions: 2026 Set 1, 2026 Set 2, 2025 Set 1, 2025 Set 2, 2024 Set 1, 2024 Set 2, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2018
The 2019 and 2021 papers are not included: the copies IAE hosts are image scans. GATE 2023 is read from IIT Kanpur's own copy of the paper and its answer key (via the Internet Archive), which numbers the CS questions Q.11 to Q.65. For 2024, 2025 and 2026 both sessions (CS1 and CS2) are included.
How we check solutions: editorial standards.
Computer Organization formulas by topic
Preparing in Kolkata? See IAE Academy’s GATE CS coaching.
THE OFFICIAL SYLLABUS
What each paper lists under Computer Organization and Architecture
Verbatim from the GATE 2027 syllabus PDF: CS Section 3, “Computer Organization and Architecture”. Number representation and floating-point arithmetic are listed under Section 2, Digital Logic, not here.
GATE CS
Instruction set and addressing modes. Design of arithmetic and logic unit (ALU). Design of control unit – hardwired and microprogrammed. Memory interfacing and hierarchy: performance, cache memory mapping. I/O interface (interrupt and DMA). Instruction pipelining, pipeline hazards.
IF YOU WOULD RATHER TALK IT THROUGH