The Hindu Business Line : Will CAT throw up surprises this year too?

Will CAT stump students again this year? Nearly 2.25 lakh students, all set to take the Common Admission Test on Sunday next (November 19) to enter the country's premier business schools, are expecting some `surprises' in the qualifying exam, this year too.

Says Mr Dipankar Choudhury, Head, Career Plan, a Bangalore-based training institute for management school entrance exams, "Since 1998, the pattern has been changing every year and we will be surprised if it doesn't this year." "The fact that the exam time has been increased by half-hour indicates that some surprises are in store," he adds. Career Plan is coaching around 3,500 students for the qualifying exam this year.

It may be recalled that for the last two years, CAT, said to be one of the toughest qualifying tests in the world, to gain an entry into a B-school, has been changing the question paper pattern every year. In 2005, it posed the lowest number of questions (90) thus giving higher weightage to each question. In 2004, it introduced the variable marking system indicating that students with out-of-the-box thinking would be picked.

Says Mr Kaushal Sharma, Course Director, CAT at Triumphant Institute of Management Education, that trains students across the country for the entrance exam, "Surprises have become a part of this exam and this year, the time frame has been increased to perhaps enable students to attempt more questions because of the low cut-off point last year."

Apart from the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) that will take in 1,500 students from this pool, CAT scores are accepted by over 80 business schools across the country. About 16,000 students are expected to use their CAT scores to gain admission to these institutes. The six IIMs are also expected to implement the first phase of reservations for OBCs, thus increasing their intake by 15 per cent in 2007.

More Stories on : Education | Management

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page