Common Admission Test (CAT) Goes Online From November 2009

[Career-Minded]

Indian Institute of Management (IIM) conducted Common Admission Test (CAT) will go online from November 2009. However, the final approval is still awaited, which will come in May at the meeting of IIM directors. But it's almost certain, as mentioned by an official who preferred to remain anonymous.

IIM Calcutta Director, Dr Shekhar Chaudhuri, in an interview during the 44th convocation of the institute, told the reporters that decision to conduct CAT online was due to increasing number of management aspirants appearing for it and the new online format is undergoing the process of improvement. As per the sources, the online model will be similar to US exams like the GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test) and GRE (Graduate Record Examination) except that the results will not appear instantly.

The traditional method of the test using 'pencil-and-paper' has been scrapped as the number of IIM aspirants has grown considerably over the years; CBT will help accommodate this increase.

The CBT format also would improve communication between candidates and IIMs in terms of programs information, test delivery, receipt of admit cards, and receipt of score reports.

CBT CAT will be a candidate-friendly test in terms of flexibility in the selection of test date, ease of registration process, better physical environment and test experience, and enhanced security in terms of biometric identification of candidates and video monitoring.

The test will be conducted in a window of about 10 days sometime at the end of the calendar year.

[AK_Chopra]

According to reports, there could be at least three sets of question papers, which will be used in different cities during the CAT Online Test. There may not be any significant changes in the question pattern, but timing could be factor while conducting the online tests.

There has been a sharp increase in the number of students that take CAT exams each year. Over 2.38 lakh students took the CAT exam in 2008.

[Ayush]

It is also expected that once the new system is in place, not all students will be able to take the exam on the same day as is the system applicable now. The exam would then take place in phases with 'spread out batches' within a period of a few months.

The other change will be that instead of the current single exam paper, the online test will carry quite a few different papers of the same level of difficulty.

Around 270,000 MBA aspirants appeared for CAT across the nation this year.

[Arval]

Coming to the format of the CAT, the standard of paper CAT is not suited for a computer based test. Paper CAT is tough and requires a lot of calculations. The same thing cannot be reproduced with a computer based test. I am expecting the test makers will look into this and tweak the format accordingly.

GRE and GMAT use a bin of questions and present the questions randomly to the test takers. The questions are recycled and so are the bins. Will the same strategy be used by CAT is something to be seen. There are pros and cons for the strategy.

[Avinash Kaur]

As mentioned by an official that the IIMs will preserve its full rights over the test although the entire process of conducting the exam, which includes processing the results and reporting the scores, will be handed over to a private service provider, with prior experience in online tests. It is also mentioned that a team has been formulated comprising of members from all IIMs, which will look into the aspect of efficiency and effectiveness of CAT being conducted online.

[Dhruv]

The online test will be based on the GRE/GMAT format. All questions will have multiple options. The IIM (Indian Institutes of Management) and other premier business schools have reportedly agreed to conduct the online test for CAT.

And you can also get your CAT Result Available Online or through SMS service.