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ShareAhmedabad, Ahmedabad: The computerized CAT test posed many challenges for aspirants this year. More than the test, it was the computer glitches during the examination that gave students anxious moments. Several CAT centres across the country faced some problems after alleged server failure. Exam centres in Ahmedabad also reported some troubles though not of similar nature. Saturday was the first day of the ten day CAT test.
Some candidates were upset with the two hour advanced reporting time, while others said they faced problem logging in to begin their test.
Talking about the troubles of reporting early, Mayur Singh*, a student from Udaipur, said, "After reporting two hours before the test, I waited for half an hour at the gate. After going through the process of identification and biometric scanning, which took around another half an hour, we sat idle for almost an hour in front of our respective computers."
Udai Singh who had difficulty logging in for the test at LJ Institute of Management Studies said, "The computer kept bouncing my identification and password. The computer had to be restarted at least twice and I ended up wasting 15 minutes before it accepted the details." Singh said several other candidates faced similar problems.
"Those who had logging problem were given extra 15 minutes but the rest of the candidates in my room had to wait for us as it was mandatory for all the students to simultaneously vacate the room," said Singh.
A statement by the managing director of Prometric India, Soumitra Roy said, "The CAT 2009 has certainly not been cancelled in any of the test centres. In fact, thousands of tests were successfully delivered in hundreds of test centres throughout India."
He further said that to accommodate the maximum number of candidates, Prometric and IIMs delayed the start of the morning session by about half an hour. "As a result of some isolated technical issues some candidates tests are being rescheduled and provided a new appointment via email and SMS," said Roy.
The CAT candidates were also unhappy that they did not have the option to begin the test from the section of their choice. This was because students could not directly go to a section of their choice.
They had to either attempt the questions in sequence or keep on clicking and skipping each question to reach the desired section.
Many students were also confused about how to close the review window which allowed the candidates to review unanswered questions. Many students prematurely ended the test by clicking the end test button assuming it to be the button to close the review window.
Talking about the cause of the confusion, another candidate Mohit Parekh said, "The tutorials in the website lacked details."
(*Some names have been changed on request)
Computerised CAT a cakewalk
The CAT 2009 was an easy one. That was the unanimous verdict of students and experts. An expert who did not want to be named said, "CAT 2009 was like a cake walk. Earlier the two and a half hour test had 75 to 90 questions. This time around 60 questions had to be answered in 2 hours and 15 minutes which makes the job much easier." He said that this year's questions were simple and direct.
Talking about the possible reason for the easy questions this year he said, "A large chunk of rural students did not appear for the test this year. The total number of candidates also dropped significantly this year. To encourage more people from participating in the test next year, CAT authorities must have gone easy on the questions to project that CAT is easy to crack." He said if the CAT tests remain this easy for the rest of the nine days then the weightage of CAT score will definitely come down.
Gracy Singh, a candidate who appeared on the first day of the test, said, "Among today's three sections, the mathematics part was the toughest. However the overall test was very easy compared to the previous years."
