Teething problems on maiden computerised examination

Testing trouble: Mouse frightens CAT

While Garden City College of Science and Management Studies (GCC) in K R Puram was the worst hit, the situation was only marginally better at other centres which too faced unending technical snags.

At Vivekananda Degree College in Rajajinagar,  one of the affected centres, over 60 candidates returned home without taking the test. Arun, a working professional and an IIM aspirant, said that candidates had to wait from 8 am to 11 am before they could occupy the computer terminals.

“I could not touch the system till 11 and five minutes later they told me that the problem could not be resolved,” a distraught Arun said. Highly critical of the manner in which the first ever computerised CAT was being conducted, Arun said that there was no clarity of information about when the test will be rescheduled.

“We have been given an assurance but the authorities at the centre simply told us that we will be informed via e-mail,” Arun said, underscoring the chaos and confusion that was the order of the day in most centres across the City.

Delayed

The afternoon session at Vivekananda Degree College too was delayed by over half an hour. Test candidates at the other centres faced problems ranging from technical issues to the test design.

Manasa, a candidate who appeared for the test at Jayanagar’s RV Institute of Management, complained that the pages took long to upload. Another IIM aspirant, Varun Sudhindra, from the same centre said that the test design made it difficult to figure out where the different sections began.

A majority of candidates Deccan Herald spoke to complained about organisers’ apathy toward their concerns on when the test would be rescheduled. A few took Prometric, the American company that designed the system, to task.

With different voices making different suggestions, most candidates made desperate calls on their cell phones to their respective coaching centre guides, seeking their help and assistance to find out when they could appear for the test next.