They feel even a minor disruption affecting a few students can spark off panic among other aspirants.
With only a few days to go for the tough Common Admission Test (CAT) 2010, B-school aspirants are keeping their fingers crossed, and are hoping that the online exam would be free from any technical problems.
The CAT 2009 had run into several technical glitches, creating a sense of fear and panic among the candidates.
However, Prometric India, the official organiser of CAT, said that adequate preparations had been done to make the exam error free this year. CAT 2010 is starting on October 27.
Several CAT aspirants of Bangalore, who spoke to DNA, said that they still shuddered at the very thought of the technical glitches that marred CAT 2009. After 33 years of pen-and-paper format, CAT went online for the first time from 2009.
“We hope proper arrangements have been made by CAT 2010 to avoid recurrence of last year’s technical problems,” said Manjushree Pathak, a CAT 2010 aspirant and working in a software firm.
The candidates said that recurrence of such incidents, even on a minute scale, could cause psychological damage.
“Out of lakhs of students, only a few thousands faced technical problems in 2009. But they affected everyone psychologically. This time the CAT organisers should doubly check to avert the repetition of previous years’ mishap,” said Sumit Narayan, another CAT aspirant.
Regarding the report of large-scale technical glitches that occurred in CAT 2009, Soumitra Roy , managing director, Prometric India, said that their investigations had revealed that many of the test centres were using unlicensed operating and anti-virus software tools.
“Many test centres were using unlicensed operating and anti-virus software tools. Our investigations also found that many of the anti-virus software tools were in use even after they had met their expiry date,” Roy added.
As part of the precautionary measures, CAT 2010 organisers are installing only licensed version of software tools at the exam centres.
“Prometric is installing operating software and anti-virus software tools. We are keeping a close look at all the work stations to be used for the exam. We have also upgraded all the hardware tools,” said Roy.
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