[mohit1984]

1. If the exam is going to be spread over 10 days or so and the candidates can choose the dates as per their convenience, I cant make out who will be those brave souls who will go and give the exams on the first day. According to me, most of the people would prefer to give the exam after 4-5 days just to see the pattern, types of questions, difficulty level etc etc. I guess then only other alternative is that IIMs basically give random dates to all the candidates applying this time like it happens in case of interviews and it's all down to your luck whether you get the first day or last day.

2. Also does it mean that after we get our scores we gotta write essays and get reco letters like it happens in GMAT and only if you get selected in round 2, you will get a chance to face the panel?

3. How will this affect the performance of candidates in other exams? Because whole of india now will concentrate to work out the exam on computer, i dunno if that will hamper the chances of candidates in other exams which are paper/pencil based.

4. Also one major difference which i would like to highlight, in GMAT suppose you are at level of 750 and next question is super duper difficult and if you mark it correct your score might reach 770 and you might be in 99.8+ bracket but in normal CAT scenario you might not attempt those super duper difficult question and still get 99.8+ by doing all easy and medium ones.

So according to me if you wanna go GMAT way then IIMs should go full GMAT way..but dont mix and match becuase as you see going by point 4 there is definitely a problem if you try giving percentiles in this Adaptive Test Scenario.

I still feel that it will be normal CAT only difference being it will be on PC. Otherwise things are definitely gonna get messy....

[hi.shivani]

First of all thanks Tanveer sir for the info and also for starting a thread to help us. Its really so nice of you.


Well, I am not at all happy with the IIMs decision to go online. We just can't equate GMAT with CAT..its like equalising orange with apple. The only similarity that both have are they both are entrance test for MBA..nothing else.
The percentile system and the score system is very different. The validity for both the scores are different. Here the competetion is throat like..even the digits after decimal makes huge difference for the calls.

The market itself is in downturn the premier institutes are facing problem to place their students satisfactorily. The heavy loans are tough to pay back. MBA seems to be a costly affair in India too now.
Heavy fees, heavy coaching fees ( even the mock test will be costlier now),heavy forms fees( ofcourse CAT forms wont be available now at just 1.5k).

Lets see how much the students and the organiser will be content after CAT 2009.

Hope PG will do some modification not just in its look but also in its content to be more helpful to the aspirants for the ONLINE format.

I am great fan of PG so hope and wish to ahve their full support in this context.


PG Rocks

@mods: plz let it rock for this season too.. ( do somthing on the online front).

Thanks..!!

[rkapoor9]

I am take aback by this news. The CAT is really getting tougher... with its content...with the way it will now be conducted.
But...I love challenges!

[Euphoric]

I agree. The GMAT / GRE procedure or pattern can not be aped directly in this environment. They say that it will increase the accessibilty. I completely feel the opposite. I still feel that most of us are not tech savvy & it would provide advantage to some one who is.
I believe that Globalization, MBA & Computer networks are connected to each other in one way or other, but by going online CAT is distancing itself from an average Indian student. In India, we cannot expect an average student to be bred on computers.
We are still 5-10 years too early to implement this pattern in our environment.

[writetotanveer]

Originally Posted by mohit1984

I still feel that it will be normal CAT only difference being it will be on PC...

Otherwise things are definitely gonna get messy....

Welcome Back Mohit!!

Good to see you here..

And very relevant points ..worth mulling on..

Tanveer

[kmaheshkumar18]

first of all ,
Thanks a lot Tanvir.....keep up the good work...
Well CAT is going online is certainly an unsatisfactory for many students..
1. we cannot glance through the paper in a matter of secs as we did in Paper based. rough work and underlining in RC passages, would not be possible. the mainly effected sections will be DI and RC. for tabular completion we have to place them on paper.
thus we might miss easy questions attempted!
2.have to pay attention towards the computer screen...during preparation and of course the exam.
3. secondly..today with the experience in CAT we are able to stratagem other exams like, XAT, SNAP, NMAT, FMS etc which may not be possible now.
4. most important of all a new strategy is required....
5.taking this as an advantage the coaching institutes will hike their fees to buty new infra structure...

however.. it chills me when we talk about being the first batch to take CAT online.
more over due to the online test we can get the scores immediately and the %ile by the end of 15 days...
Speaking on those who have taken tests in class 2, class4....we can have them in nicely furnished A.C. rooms./
we can take them on any day of the week. I got bored taking tests on sundays...
GDPI will start by Jan AND PROCESS WILL COMPLETE BY THE end of feb....
we might even have a home based test taking......

As we can see there are both sides........
The Thing that we need to worry is all about...how the test is going to be????
an e-paper or a Computer adaptive test.....
Can we highlight sentences in RC sections?
What are all we allowed to do with e-paper?.....
Do the IIM's release mock CD like Acquaint yourself during application process.?
How to have a glance through the entire paper so that we can identify easy questions???
with in how many days does the coaching centres be ready with online test taking?
before we took the mock papers home... now do the coaching intitutes give CDs?

Definetely even in coaching institutes not all people are allowed to take the test on the same day.......then how can the maintain privacy about the test model...like that in AIMCATs?
so all for what we want the most is
(forget the dificulty levels)....the iims must realease information on the pattern and a model test.....

[kmaheshkumar18]

Originally Posted by Euphoric

I agree. The GMAT / GRE procedure or pattern can not be aped directly in this environment. They say that it will increase the accessibilty. I completely feel the opposite. I still feel that most of us are not tech savvy & it would provide advantage to some one who is.
I believe that Globalization, MBA & Computer networks are connected to each other in one way or other, but by going online CAT is distancing itself from an average Indian student. In India, we cannot expect an average student to be bred on computers.
We are still 5-10 years too early to implement this pattern in our environment.

indeed...
in 1999/98(not sure of dates)
CAT removed two english section pattern for the sole reason that an average rural student might not be able to face the tough english section.

now it is certainly impossible for a rural guy to crack CAT...Computers are not completely into the rural INDIA yet...it will take time..

I don't understand why the iims have forgotten about the Rural people and when did they started taking decisions keeping only urban in mind...

[writetotanveer]

Good to see a lot of healthy debate going on here..

But meanwhile what cannot be cured must be endured..!!

Here is a list of online resources that we can look at to supplement our online prep for the CAT.

These sites are performing two major functions

1.They provide online CAT material for prep.
2. They provide facilities to simulate the Online Mock CAT.

www.imsindia.com (Among the BIG 3 of CAT Coaching in India and I think the oldest Coaching Insti..)

www.ptindia.com (They used to have a Drishti newsletter which was very good and also lots of free practice for EU)

www.cflogic.com (Lot of aspirants have told me that they find Career Forum's paper pencil Mock Cats quite good)

www.careerlauncher.com ( One of the BIG 3 Coaching Instis)

www.time4education.com ( One of the BIG 3 Coaching Instis))

www.tenaday.co.in ( Started by IIM Grads - was among the first to encourage online prep)

www.cat4mba.com ( Decent quality of prep material esp in test format)

www.solidgyan.com ( Am a fan of their Solid DI a day. I think they tied up with PG last year )

www.tcyonline.com ( Found some good stuff on GK during the last two seasons. )


www.coolavenues.com ( interesting site with lots of MBA related articles and news)

www.catindiaonline.com ( They were the first to come with the XL answers this year and most of the English section was correct..which impressed me...)

www.cation.in ( some surrogate advertising happening on thread mentioed below..but still worth checking out esp. for their blackboard concept)

www.totalgadha.com ( Good and dependable study material..)

www.testfunda.com ( They are handing out scolarships to people who scored more than 90 percentile in CAT /XAT 200

www.iimcatwalk.com ( not a very active site ..but has some good articles )

www.mbauniverse.com ( Have seen these people become fairly active and regular with their MBA newsletters over last year)



Actually the major source for theses sites is this thread from PG Online CAT preparation

Please check out these sites and provide your feedback sites so that Puys can accordingly concentrate their energies..

Meanwhile - I will keep on adding other sites as I come across them..

Of Course whe it comes to discussions and interaction and bonding there is only one site - www.pagalguy.com....

Tanveer

[rahul.zutshi]

As mentioned in ET, it is CBT ( Computer Based Test) and not Computer Adaptive Test like GRE and GMAT.

It will be like everything we do with a paper will be done on a PC.


This takes me to another issue, the quality of PC's used for the test.
I know a person who was upset by the quality of mouse and anti-virus pop ups while taking TOEFL which hampered his performance ......

If something like this happens who will be responsible.???

Not to mention the quality of the software being used for the first time...


But puys....
"when going gets tough... tough gets going..."

So Attitude should be like... BRING IT ON....

[ankurg38]

Got the confirm news of CAT going online from this year and it is really bothering me for several reasons .....i was really hoping it would happen from next year. I don't know why i feel that it would be more inconvenient to me . I will have to change this attitude pretty soon though . I just joined this site today and don't have much idea how to use it for my cat preparation . I am an engineering student and have joined career launcher classroom program. My preparations were going very well till now but i don't have any idea what sort of resources does my coaching have to prepare me for an online CAT . Few concerns that i do have are :

1. Will it be fair to all students that different people will get different sets ? ...( i know it happens in GMAT and other exams but the competition is much tougher in CAT)

2.They have hinted at exam being in December and that would be really a disastrous since engineering students will be having their exams then.

3.Question pattern is bound to be changed since the test is going online.Is there any way to know what topics will have more prominence now ?

I don't agree with people who think that it would be tougher for people who are not tech savy .....it wouldn't require much of tech skills to select the options .

Only good thing i can see right now is that it has taken every1 by surprise so i have an equal chance of getting hold of the online format as any1 else. I have my btech exams coming up and my CAT prep was in a cold storage ....this news has just messed up my mind.