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GATE quantitative aptitude: 5 practice questions with solutions

By the PrepMatic team · Updated 9 Oct 2026 · 4 min read

Quantitative aptitude is the calculation half of the 15-mark General Aptitude section that every GATE paper carries. The questions are school-level maths, but they are meant to be solved in a minute or two with the on-screen calculator, so method matters more than raw arithmetic. The five questions below are original practice questions in GATE style, with every step of the working shown in the answers.

What GATE quantitative aptitude covers

The GATE 2027 syllabus lists data interpretation, ratios, percentages, powers, logarithms, permutations and combinations, series, mensuration and geometry, and elementary statistics and probability. Typical question shapes are:

• Profit, loss, discount and successive percentage changes.
• Time, work, speed and distance, including pipes and relative motion.
• Counting: arrangements with repeated letters, restrictions, committees.
• Simple probability with dice, cards and coins.
• Reading a table or chart and computing a ratio, growth or share.

GA has 10 questions for 15 marks across verbal, quantitative, analytical and spatial skills. Questions in the real paper can be MCQ, MSQ or NAT; in a NAT question you key the number in and there is no negative marking. Below, everything is an MCQ for convenience. For how GA fits the whole paper, see the GATE general aptitude guide.

Practice questions

Question 1

A shopkeeper marks an article 40% above its cost price and then allows a discount of 15% on the marked price. His profit percentage is:

• A. 15%
• B. 19%
• C. 25%
• D. 26%

Question 2

A can complete a job in 12 days and B can complete it in 18 days. They work together for 4 days, after which A leaves. The number of additional days B needs to finish the remaining work is:

• A. 5
• B. 6
• C. 7
• D. 8

Question 3

The number of distinct arrangements of the letters of the word LEVEL in which the two L's are not adjacent is:

• A. 12
• B. 15
• C. 18
• D. 30

Question 4

Two fair six-faced dice are thrown together. The probability that the sum of the numbers shown is a prime number is:

• A. 5/12
• B. 1/3
• C. 7/18
• D. 4/9

Question 5

The table shows the number of students placed from three branches in three years.

By approximately how many percentage points did CS's share of the total students placed rise from 2023 to 2025?

• A. 1.4
• B. 2.4
• C. 3.4
• D. 4.4

Answers and explanations

1. B. Take cost price as 100. Marked price = 140. Selling price = 140 × 0.85 = 119. Profit = 19%. Do not add 40 and subtract 15: the discount applies to the marked price, not the cost.
2. D. A's rate is 1/12 and B's is 1/18, so together they do 1/12 + 1/18 = 5/36 per day. In 4 days they finish 20/36 = 5/9 of the job. Remaining work = 4/9. B alone does 1/18 per day, so he needs (4/9) ÷ (1/18) = 8 days.
3. C. LEVEL has 5 letters with L repeated twice and E repeated twice, so the total number of arrangements is 5!/(2! × 2!) = 30. Treat the two L's as one block: the objects LL, E, E, V can be arranged in 4!/2! = 12 ways. Arrangements with the L's apart = 30 − 12 = 18.
4. A. There are 36 equally likely outcomes. The prime sums are 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11, which occur in 1, 2, 4, 6 and 2 ways respectively, a total of 15. Probability = 15/36 = 5/12.
5. C. Totals are 250 (2023) and 350 (2025). CS's share was 120/250 = 48.0% in 2023 and 180/350 = 51.43% in 2025. The rise is 51.43 − 48.00 = 3.43, which is about 3.4 percentage points. Note the unit: this is percentage points, not percent growth of the share.

How to prepare quantitative aptitude

• Build the base once, in a week or two. Revise percentages, ratio and proportion, averages, time and work, speed and distance and basic counting. After that, practise timed questions rather than rereading.
• Practise the shortcut of choosing a convenient base. Setting cost price to 100, or total work to the LCM of the two durations (36 units in Question 2), turns fractions into whole numbers and removes most arithmetic slips.
• Keep the calculator for the last step. The GATE calculator is a virtual one on the screen, and slower to use than a handheld one. Simplify fractions on paper first.
• Learn counting by restriction. The "total minus unwanted" method in Question 3 (count everything, subtract the cases you do not want) solves a large share of permutation questions.
• Draw a table for data interpretation. Compute the totals and one ratio per row before you look at the options. Many options differ by exactly the mistake you would make by rushing.
• Take a timed set of 10 mixed questions twice a week and note which topic cost you the most time.

The quantitative part of GA is also the part that overlaps most with engineering mathematics for probability, so the probability and statistics practice page is a natural next step.

Take the full topic test on PrepMatic

PrepMatic's topic tests run about 15 questions in 30 minutes, which suits a timed quantitative set like the one above. Its free assessment shows which subjects are weakest for you before you decide how to split your time.

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