Students aspiring to take the Common Admission Test (CAT) this year may be able to familiarise themselves with the computer-based format as Prometric, the US-based software firm conducting the exam, will release a practice test paper soon.
The test, jointly worked out by Prometric and the Indian Institutes of Management, will have two parts — a tutorial and the actual test.
“A practice test will be available on www.catiim.in website at least a month before the start of the testing window to familiarise candidates with the navigation and functionality of the CAT. There will be a tutorial followed by 12 sample questions. The sample questions in the practice test are not representative of the content or difficulty level of the actual test,” said Prometric India MD Soumitra Roy.
Roy added the test would be released on the website in two weeks. The tutorial will explain navigation around the screen that has the question number, on-screen timer, and buttons like ‘next’, ‘previous’, ‘mark’, ‘review’ and ‘quit test’.
As for the sample questions, every question will have four options — A, B, C and D. Candidates will read the question on the screen and click on the circle next to their selected answer. They can change their answer simply by clicking on any other circle.
Three points are awarded for each correct answer and one point is deducted for each wrong answer, so candidates may choose not to answer a question if they are not sure.
“There is no penalty for unanswered questions. If they’ve already selected an answer but later decide that they would prefer not to answer that question, all they need to do is click on the clicked circle again. Candidates have 15 minutes for this practice test and they can return and try the practice test as many times as they want,” Roy explained.
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Candidates will have to sign a non-disclosure agreement to take the test, to not disclose the type of questions. Disciplinary action maybe entailing a lawsuit could be taken for doing so.
CAT 2009, held for the first time under the online format, was marred by technical glitches leading to rescheduling of the examinations.