The Common Admission Test (CAT) this year too may remain a paper-pencil test. Last December, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) had floated a tender and shortlisted four companies to conduct CAT 2009 online. These companies include ETS Prometric, Pearson VUE, Eduquity Career Technologies and Mumbai-based Attest, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aptech.
The IIMs now say the probability of CAT going online this year is low, given the logistics involved. “We don’t know yet if CAT would go online. We are in the process of finalising the vendors. In the next few weeks, we will take a call if we will go online this year or not,” Pankaj Chandra, director, IIM Bangalore, told Business Standard.
“To go online or not would be decided in April. We still would have eight months, which hopefully will be enough for us. If not, we will go for the usual paper-pencil test, where we are familiar with the entire logistics of printing, advertising and hiring of rental places for writing the test,” he added.
CAT online would mean taking the test on a computer which will serve questions from a local server. The IIMs have said they will need a good number of computer terminals for students to take the examination. “A whole lot of other details need to be put in place which needs time,” said a senior faculty member from one of the IIMs, who did not wish to be identified.
An executive from a prominent MBA preparatory institute concurred: “We are talking about around 300,000 students taking the exam in one day. Taking an examination like CAT online would require good work from IIMs in terms of infrastructure and facilities which will not happen in a few months’ time.”
MBA test preparing institute Career Launcher too says if IIMs were to go online with CAT this year, they should have notified the students by now. Career Launcher is investing around Rs 30 lakh across its centers to facilitate online CAT training on computer terminals to its students.
IIMs say they have been occupied earlier with placements and now with admission process. “Once these processes are in place, we would be clear on how to take the issue of online CAT. We should be able to take a decision in April or May regarding the same,” said a professor from IIM Calcutta.
The final verdict is out long back. CAT is a computer based test and there is no more resistance against it by students and educationists. This could be mainly because a lot of awareness and information has been raised on the various aspect of the new CAT.
In infact the registrations for CAT have started today. And IIMs and Prometric have uploaded a video on how to go about the registration process on YouTube. It seems that the video has received a large number of hits from students.... So best of luck everyone!!!
It's no use to go to the centers and take exam online. They should arrange a way in which students can take exam online sitting at their home. They should provide username and Password through correspondence or email and a way in which all the password will work at same standard time and once only.
this would indeed cost saving technique if implemented correctly.
Hi,
First of all thanks for breaking this information to us. By looking the way IIM has targetted the online preparation exam looks unorganized to me. It needs a lot thought process before puting it into real. Certainly the time allotted for that doesn't look enough. According to me student will have to prepare themselves to learn using Keyboard and monitor.
its quite obvious that online cat examination would be more tougher for students and those who are not computer savvy would find cracking online cat exam more difficult. Apart from this, sufficent number of computers need to be installed . so, in my opinion tne idea of online cat examination need to be reconsidered!
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