CAT Was Cool On First Day

"There was no mouse trouble for CAT this year. Day one of the second edition of the online Common Admission Test (CAT), that decides admission to Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and 150-odd business schools, went off without technical glitches on Wednesday. Last year, the test was not smooth due to technical problems galore"

Candidates, who braved the early morning showers in the city to make it to the exam centres, were pleasantly surprised by the easy format of the exam - and courteous volunteers at the centres.


"The exam was easy. There were 60 questions with 20 in each section. All sections had 8-9 sitters," said Dhruv, an engineering student.

With the nightmare of last year's technical fiasco still hanging heavily on their mind, Prometric, the American testing agency, tried every trick in the trade to ensure a glitch-free first day of the 29-day long exam season.


Only 4,548 (2.2%) of the total 2.06 lakh candidates had lined up to take the exam across India, including 10 centres in Bangalore. With the organisers expanding the testing period from 10 to 20 days this year, most centres had smaller groups turning up at each session for the exam.


At least two centres in Bangalore reported not having a single student taking the second session on Wednesday. Karthik (name changed), a Tommy Hilfiger employee, was the only candidate to report a tech-glitch at Bangalore's IBMT Business School. "The computer hung when I had five minutes to finish the exam. Immediately I was provided with another PC and given additional time to complete the test. But I was really nervous for those five minutes," he told .


Coaching centres pointed out two possible errors in the paper. "I could make out there was one question with incorrect options and the second one had a typographical error. Both were in the quantitative section," Gautam Puri, IIM-B alumnus and Career Launcher head, said.


Thursday will be a nontest day.