CAT 2009 fiasco

Well, it’s well past December 7 and I’m no more bound by the agreement pertaining to the non-disclosure of anything and everything related to CAT 2009 till Dec 7, the last day of the ten-day window for the first online CAT ever. One of the weirdest ideas certainly and that too from none other than the Indian Institutes of Management, the institutes regarded as the best for management studies in India. How on earth did they ensure that the agreement was adhered to by all the 240,000 candidates who appeared for the first online CAT ever? Ludicrous, isn’t it? Online portals and communities discussing the paper certainly provided an edge to the candidates who chose to appear in the last few days. Well, it’s only the tip of the iceberg as the online CAT had been in news for all the wrong reasons since day 1 of its inception. Computers crashed all around the country as candidates reached the examination centers to get a feel of the first online CAT. While some candidates who could appear for the examination had to face a hell lot of technical glitches, some resorted to unfair means while the proctors were busy attending the problematic computers thus putting an end to the transparency and fairness that had been associated with CAT so far. The IIM washed their hands of the matter putting the blame on Prometric, a US based firm with whom lay the responsibility of conducting the exam online all around India. As if it wasn’t the duty of the IIM to see to it that the first ever online CAT was conducted without any glitches. The IIM and the Prometric together put the blame on viruses that plagued the computers out of nowhere (a piece of advice here for the IIM: Please think twice before making an excuse as even a 10-year old kid today knows that an antivirus scans and removes most of the common viruses that infect your personal computers). And anyway even if we assume that viruses did play a role in the online CAT fiasco, it doesn’t make anyone less accountable for all that happened. How come these viruses were left undetected till then? When the IIM are so fastidious when it comes to selecting the students for the management program it is expected that they be equally immaculate. Haven’t they (the IIM) heard of the dictum: Practise what you preach?
Now talking about the examination itself, the CAT certainly seems to have lost its bite. The caselets in DI-LR and English section were haphazardly arranged which was rather annoying. The ingenuity and the uniqueness associated with the English section throughout the earlier CATs was certainly found missing. Reportedly, some caselets (in the quant section) from the previous years’ CAT paper found their way back into the online format (something you don’t expect from the IIM). Besides, no mention about the marking scheme and the extent of negative marking was another element of surprise in this year’s CAT. The CAT undoubtedly did live up to its unpredictability quotient but it certainly didn’t live up to its expectations. It has turned out to be nothing short of an embarrassment for the IIM and can definitely serve as a case study in ‘mismanagement’ for management students across the world, and ironically so.

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