Second phase of CAT commences sans glitches

About 400 candidates appear for test

On Saturday, the first day of second phase of the CAT 2009 saw about 400 candidates appear for problem-free test, at three test centres here.

The test centres, RV College of Engineering, Global Academy of Engineering and MVJ Institute of Technology, had students walk out satisfied and relieved that there was no interruption or technical glitches this time. As many as 747 candidates from Bangalore are expected to appear for the CAT 2009 second phase, spread over two days.

Anil Kumar (name changed), an IIM aspirant, who appeared for CAT on Saturday said: “I am hopeful now, as I was given the opportunity to redo the CAT. The first entrance was a traumatic experience. The retest was fair, just and most important, without any technical snags and there was absolutely no disturbance during the test.”  

Of the 11,050 candidates offered to take up the CAT for the second time, 1,625 candidates have opted to retain the scores. Hence, 9,400 candidates are expected to appear for the retest.

About 40 per cent of those candidates who were not able to appear for CAT during the 11 day testing window, following the cancellation of their original appointment, were also give the opportunity to take up the retest.

Responsibility

The test centres had taken it as a responsibility to render a problem-free CAT. RV College of Engineering, an autonomous institution, is one of the first colleges to introduce online tests for post graduate courses and has also  been the test centre for both phases of CAT.

N S Narahari, Director of Placement and Training, RVCE, said, “Conducting CAT without any problems is being considered as a responsibility rather than an opportunity. As per the requirement of IIMs, the Institute upgraded its infrastructure and hence on both phases of CAT, there has been no disturbance in this test centre.”

Owing to the inevitable changes in the weather, Prometric Testing Service had revised the test schedule for CAT. According to an official from one of the test centres here, the fog condition in Delhi was cited as the main reason for change in the timing.

The official said, “The adverse weather conditions has made it difficult for the technical staff to travel and arrive at the Central Server to pull out a concurrent schedule across the country. The synchronisation at the central server would have been awry, if the test had been started as per the earlier schedule. Hence to evade the possible problems, the IIMs and Prometric announced a revised schedule.”