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September 2026 qualifier: applications close Sun 27 Sep · Week 1 starts Fri 2 Oct
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Qualifier Syllabus: Week-by-Week Topics

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The qualifier exam covers weeks 1–4 of each course in your programme. The topics below come from the official IIT Madras course pages; each week links to its notes, graded assignment help and practice on this site.

Every programme has four qualifier courses, and each course teaches one block of topics per week. The weekly graded assignment tests that week's topics, and the exam draws on all four weeks of all four courses — so a week you rush is a week you will need to revisit before the exam.

Data Science and Applications

Mathematics for Data Science IBSMA1001

  1. Week 1: Set Theory

    Number systems · Sets and set operations · Relations and their types · Functions and their types

  2. Week 2: Straight Lines

    Rectangular coordinate system · Slope of a line · Parallel and perpendicular lines · Representations of a line · General equation of a line · Straight-line fit

  3. Week 3: Quadratic Functions

    Quadratic functions · Minima, maxima and vertex · Slope of a quadratic · Quadratic equations

  4. Week 4: Algebra of Polynomials

    Polynomial arithmetic · Polynomial division algorithms · X-intercepts and multiplicities · End behaviour and turning points · Graphing and building polynomials

Statistics for Data Science IBSMA1002

  1. Week 1: Introduction and Types of Data

    Types of data · Descriptive and inferential statistics · Scales of measurement

  2. Week 2: Describing Categorical Data

    Frequency distributions · Graphing categorical data · Mode and median of categorical data

  3. Week 3: Describing Numerical Data

    Frequency tables for numerical data · Mean, median and mode · Quartiles and percentiles · Range, variance, standard deviation and IQR · Five-number summary

  4. Week 4: Association Between Two Variables

    Contingency tables and relative frequencies · Scatterplots · Covariance · Pearson correlation coefficient · Point bi-serial correlation

Computational ThinkingBSCS1001

  1. Week 1: Variables, Iterators and Filtering

    Variables and initialisation · Iterators · Filtering · Data types · Flowcharts · Sanity of data

  2. Week 2: Iteration, Selection and Pseudocode

    Iteration and filtering · Selection · Pseudocode · Finding maximum and minimum · AND operator

  3. Week 3: Multiple Iterations and Procedures

    Multiple non-nested iterations · Three prizes problem · Procedures and parameters · Side effects · OR operator

  4. Week 4: Nested Iterations

    Nested iterations · Birthday paradox · Binning

English IBSHS1001

  1. Week 1: Sounds and Words

    Vowel sounds · Consonant sounds

  2. Week 2: Parts of Speech

    Parts of speech

  3. Week 3: Sentences, Phrases and Idioms

    Sentences · Phrases · Idioms

  4. Week 4: Speaking Skills

    Spoken English preliminaries

Electronic Systems

English IHS1101

  1. Week 1: Sounds and Words

    Vowel sounds · Consonant sounds

  2. Week 2: Parts of Speech and Articles

    Parts of speech · Articles

  3. Week 3: Words and Phrases

    Vocabulary · Phrasal verbs · Modal verbs · Idioms

  4. Week 4: Speaking Skills

    Spoken English preliminaries · Telephone English

Math for Electronics IMA1101

  1. Week 1: Numbers, Variables, Functions and Equations

    Visualising expressions and equations · Functions of one variable · Straight lines

  2. Week 2: Systems of Linear Equations

    Systems of two linear equations · Matrix representation · m equations in n variables

  3. Week 3: Sequences and Limits

    Bounded and monotonic sequences · Convergent and divergent sequences · Limit of a sequence · Computing limits · Monotone convergence theorem

  4. Week 4: Limits of Functions and Continuity

    Limit of a function · Continuity · Powers and exponentials · One-sided limits · Limits at infinity

Electronic Systems Thinking and CircuitsEE1101

  1. Week 1: Mobile Teardown and the Resistor

    Miniaturisation of electronic packaging · Mobile teardown · Battery and charger · Back-of-the-envelope calculations · The resistor

  2. Week 2: Voltage, Current and Circuit Analysis

    Voltage and current · Ohm's law · Series and parallel sources · I-V characteristics · Nodal analysis and KCL · Mesh analysis and KVL · Series and parallel resistors · Capacitors and inductors

  3. Week 3: Dial, Talk and Hear

    The microphone · Motor and generator · The sinusoid · Energy of time-varying signals · Harmonics · Electricity consumption at home

  4. Week 4: Problem Solving with Resistive Circuits

    Lower and upper bounds · Resistive ladder · Wheatstone bridge · Resistive cube

Introduction to C ProgrammingCS1101

  1. Week 1: How a Computer Works

    Memory and computation · Split memory architecture · Loops, conditions and branches · Memory and the outside world · What is programming · Introduction to C

  2. Week 2: Data Representation

    Number representation · Negative numbers and hexadecimal · Floating-point representation · Character encoding · Instruction encoding · Compilation · Role of the operating system

  3. Week 3: Introduction to C Programming

    Structure of a C program · Variables · Operators · Expressions

  4. Week 4: Control Statements

    Structured programming · Control flow · if-else-if and switch · for and while loops

Official sources

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