There are exams and there are exams. In India, there is no dearth of them. The toughness of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) entrance test, in two parts and spanning an entire year, is much ballyhooed. Hundreds of eager men and women take out a significant chunk of their lives to prepare. There are entire enclaves devoted to this. Delhi's Mukherjee Nagar and Mumbai's Borivali are hubs of IAS coaching institutes.
Then there is the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) entrance, an essential rite of passage for any self-respecting parent. What the child might want is another matter. Preparations start as early as IX standard. Kota's economy has boomed on the back of this business. Questions in JEE Advanced, the second stage of engineering entrance necessary for an IIT admission, have the toughness of a seasoned Sumo wrestler. Scores of bright young things develop self-esteem issues only because they are unable to crack it.
Then there is the common admission test (CAT), arguably the easiest of the three. A one-time test conducted over two hours, its syllabus come nowhere close to that for the IITs and IAS in either breadth or depth. Yet, CAT coaching, numbers will tell you, is a booming business. Apart from the national players, a number of regional players are active today, each charging in the range of Rs 30,000 for a one-year programme. With 250,000 students taking CAT every year, and assuming a not unreasonable 90 per cent coaching throughput, the sector is worth over Rs 600 crore.
The bulk of those who pay that kind of money are youngsters who have only a passing acquaintance with English. This could mean those who went to non-English-medium schools, or those whose backgrounds have not encouraged the use of English, or those who are simply not "language people", that is, they know the language but are not attuned to the universe of debate and dialogue, for instance in the press, that is essential for comfort.
In class, we build upon basic concepts to launch into a vast, fitful sea of proper English and high comprehension. Yes, at first sight, CAT can be a somewhat scary beast. There are passages on Jung's theory of the unconscious. There is Derrida admonishing the reader into reading between the lines. There is Darwin inoculating himself against (as yet unarticulated) theories of intelligent design. If, despite all this, test takers decide to have a shot at CAT, it is because MBA looks like the only sure bet in today's economy.
When, in the event, some find that hard work alone won't dovetail into the poise that a lifetime's usage commands, they feel disheartened and disillusioned. This happens when they take mocks, euphemism for full-length practice tests that CAT coaching institutes provide. It is something of a parlour game among CAT faculty to see who makes the most damningly impenetrable test. In a vicious turn, it is considered a mark of one's skill to design tests that will make students weep.
How sickening really! I am against the idea of making mocks too tough. There is a skeleton the industry follows, according to which every question must be marked easy, medium or difficult. This is to gauge the difficulty level of the test which, in turn, determines what is a good score. Of the 30 verbal questions in every mock, a score of 22-23 with 2-3 wrong is considered a good benchmark. Of course, individual tests may diverge somewhat from this criterion.
I have shown my tests around, that is, to other people in the profession, and they all deem them rather "easy". I can live with that. I refuse to confuse opaqueness for toughness. I have seen students take mocks from other coaching institutes. Some of these are so difficult that it is impossible to attempt even half their questions in the stipulated time. In fact, "difficult" would be the wrong word. They are rather deliberately vague, with answer options not clearly differentiated. Even for a seasoned faculty, one is never sure one has answered correctly.
Like most exams, CAT is a marathon, not a sprint. It is important for students, in my view, to peak during the final test-taking window. Extremely tough tests discourage them and leave them sullen. The time they should spend preparing is lost in counselling them. For this reason, when I was asked to make mocks for my employer, I made it a point not to increase the level of toughness beyond bearable.
There is, however, another reason I make "easy" mocks. CAT, at some level, is also a psychological game. Students go through months of preparation before they finally take this make-or-break exam. If they have sat through "easy" tests that they are at least able to attempt, they will enter the examination hall with a confidence that just might turn into smooth sailing. If, on the other hand, they are constantly weighted down by feelings of how ill-prepared they are, even a moderately difficult CAT will appear to be a hostile mountain impossible to scale.
The author has switched too many jobs in the past and hopes he can hold down this one
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
