The Common Admission Test (CAT), conducted by the prestigious IIMs, has been made online from this year, marking an end of the 33-year-old paper-based examination system. Other 150 B-schools also plans to change its format from being a paper-and-pencil test to a computerbased test (CBT).
The test, which will be spread over 10 days with two sessions per day, will give freedom to the candidates to choose the day of their preference. In its new format, the CAT question sets are expected to be on the lines of those asked in GMAT, which means one may expect ‘difficult’ data interpretation and ‘long’ reading comprehension tests to be absent from the question papers. Unlike GMAT and GRE, CAT doesn’t assess a candidate’s writing skills and will not be adaptive in nature. As per the CAT committee, the upcoming test will have three sections on quantitative, verbal, and logical & data interpretation , with about 60 to 70 questions.
Unlike GRE and GMAT, where attemoting every question is mandatory, a student would be given the option of choosing the questions he wants to attempt.
Sandeep Manudhane, founder chairman, PT Education, said since the software in the new system has no option to de-select a selected option, one need to be careful while selecting the options.
