Technical problems and poor management continued on the second day of the computerised Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to management institutes in the country.
After a chaotic first day of the prestigious examination’s online launch in various centres, various technical issues arose at selected computers in approximately 50 labs on Sunday, resulting in cancellation of the test in these places and approximately 2,000 exams from being delivered
Yesterday, computer servers in 11 exam centres had failed. The online test has been scheduled up to December 7 in 32 cities, with about 24,000 students expected to take the exams each day. It is being conducted by the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), along with Prometric, developer of the computer system for CAT, which determines admission to the premier IIMs and other B-schools.
According to an announcement by the IIM here, on its website, “While a significant majority of the candidates successfully completed their exams on Day One, various technical issues arose at selected computers in approximately 50 labs (today) that prevented approximately 2,000 exams from being delivered. Prometric has generated new appointments for these individuals and they are in the process of being contacted through SMS and email messages. Prometric technicians have been dispatched to address these isolated problems.”
“IIM Ahmedabad’s director has been talking to Prometric since yesterday to clear the issues that are marring the smooth conduct of the exam. A meeting has been scheduled in the evening to discuss the issues that arose. Meanwhile, Prometric has rescheduled the exams and are contacting individuals on the same,” said Satish Deodhar, CAT convener and on the faculty at IIM-A.
“We understand how stressful it is for candidates to adapt to this new computer-based format,” said Soumitra Roy, Managing Director, India, Prometric. “We truly regret the additional stress that candidates were subjected to over the first weekend of the CAT 2009, and are doing everything we can to make the rest of the testing experience as smooth as possible.”
While most candidates followed the website or got direct communication through SMS and emails, there were many who returned from the exam centres today. “The tests are conducted in two slots, morning and evening. Unfortunately, many students were not aware of the cancellation of the morning test, resulting in the confusion. Those who took the tests faced the same snags as day one. The downloading time was high and some students had a problem in focusing because of the general chaos. As far as the paper is concerned, it was identical to yesterday’s and on expected lines,” said Gautam Puri vice-chairman, Career Launcher.
The computerised CAT is being held across 360 testing labs at 104 individual locations, with each lab accomodating 40 students. Around 241,000 students registered for CAT 2009.
Swati Jindal, a candidate who was prepared to take the exam in the morning slot on Sunday says,”I got an SMS at midnight informing that the exam has been rescheduled and that Prometric will inform in two days as to when the test will be conducted.”
Yesterday’s problems in opening the computers were at certain centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Bhopal. Among the centres that had problems today, 11 were in Bangalore, followed by others in Bhopal, Lucknow, Mumbai, New Delhi, Ghaziabad, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Kolkata and Coimbatore.
