With the IIMs announcement that CAT 2009 will be a computer-based test and will be held over a period of 10 days, there was some apprehension on whether the difficulty level of the test paper would vary on different days of test. In order to ensure that these apprehensions will not turn to facts, the IIMs and Prometric are taking steps to ensure that each of the question papers in the 20 sessions of testing are of equal validity.
The IIMs and Prometric along with Educational Testing Service (ETS), a non-profit institution dealing in educational testing and test prep products, will look after the quality assurance. Professors and Psychometricians from IIMs, Prometric and ETS will conduct a thorough statistical analysis of the CAT results and match them with the respective candidates. The IIMs and Prometric will conduct preliminary analysis of the test results continuously throughout the 10-day testing period, with each day’s data being retrieved from the testing centers and assembled for processing.
“Unlike last year when the test was held on a single day, this time there are in all 20 sessions and each sessions will have different question forms. We would be required to compare these forms which will need some validity and reliability checks, something similar to GRE or GMAT said a senior professor who is close to the development on condition of anonymity.
