Common Admission Test - CAT 2009 goes Online.

The Indian Institute(s) of Management (IIMs) finally decide to conduct the Common Admission Test (CAT) online. Almost three lakh students seeking admission into IIMs in November this year will be able to appear for the Common Admission Test online , as India’s premier management institutes seek to transform the over three-decade-old examination system and provide more flexibility to IIM aspirants by adopting an internet-based system reports the Economic Times.

The online CAT test may be formatted based on the GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) o that the scores are valid for two to three years. An IIM Calcutta professor who is working on the proposal said the primary reason for taking the CAT online is the increasing number of aspirants.

"However, we are also considering other possibilities for conducting the CAT exams," he added.
All questions will have multiple options. The IIM (Indian Institutes of Management) and other premier business schools have reportedly agreed to conduct the online test for CAT.

According to IIM Sources, there could be at least three sets of question papers, which will be used in different cities during the CAT Online Test. There may not be any significant changes in the question pattern, but timing could be factor while conducting the online tests. The new computer-based test (CBT) will be embraced by IIMs across Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Indore, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong, and will allow students to select a date convenient to them from a specified period of 10 days.

CBT CAT will be a candidate-friendly test in terms of flexibility in the selection of test date, ease of registration process, better physical environment and test experience, Professor Amarnath Krishnaswamy of IIM Bangalore (IIM-B) told ET.

The new system is also expected to help the IIMs cope effectively with the increasing number of candidates every year. While around 95,000 candidates took CAT in 2003, the number rose to about 250,000 last year, reflecting a growth of over 163% and bringing the administrative system under severe pressure.

It is also expected that once the new system is in place, not all students will be able to take the exam on the same day as is the system applicable now. The exam would then take place in phases with 'spread out batches' within a period of a few months.

The other change will be that instead of the current single exam paper, the online test will carry quite a few different papers of the same level of difficulty.

For online CAT exams, the IIMs could outsource the project to an IT firm specializing in education and training services.

"The company will provide us with the infrastructure, but the control of setting the question paper will remain with the IIMs. The company will also be allowed to conduct exams at its franchisees," the professor said.

The IIMs may also conduct a preliminary test for students to be eligible to take the CAT. The format of group discussion and personal interviews will, however, be the same.

Taking CAT online stems from IIMs' concern over the chaos that occurs during declaration of results. Last year, for instance, heavy traffic caused the website to crash on January 8, when the results were declared.

Besides the seven IIMs, which conduct the exams, the CAT results are also used by 124 other management institutions to enroll students.