Hi All,

Well this is what most of you would like to term this years CAT. Taking for granted that most of you know the LOD of CAT 2009, it would have been a disaster for some of those who suffered coz of "virus attacks". My heart goes out to those who have had to face various problems due to certain issues beyond their control. Many of us would term this CAT as having an unfair testing ground. But I feel the IIM’s surely have something up their sleeve considering the level they are at. Lest we know, we may have a 2003 repeat. But this by far has been one of the best games of Cat and mouse the IIM’s have ever played. And this year they had an accomplice-Prometric. How unfortunate for us 2lakh+ "mices" who are in a rat race to get into the top B-schools.

I gave my test yesterday in the second half, marking the end of the first half of the testing period. Well, with the kind of publicity this CAT has been generating I went in with a very negative frame of mind, but fortunately for me, comparing to what I was expecting, it was CATelicious. Though my test took 5 minutes longer to load than the rest of the students in my lab(a common issue I’ve heard), I say it was good because I had excellent proctors who knew their job and which in turn gave me a sense of confidence too. And as it has been discussed in other forums the LOD has been that of a 10th Std. aptitude test. Going with what I have heard and done, most of us would have attempted 35-40+ questions with almost 100% accuracy, which leads us to discussing the marking pattern. Nowhere was anything mentioned and trust me, I read every line of the tutorial and searched the entire review page hoping to get an idea but of no avail. Though one thing for sure there is negative marking. If there was weighted marking, it would have been mentioned somewhere in the test, but it was not and they have clearly mentioned negative marking. I’m not sure if any of you have heard about it before but I feel the IIM’s will be making the use of weighted negative marking. A concept not widely used, but not ruling out a possibility, it is based on the LOD of the question. For e.g.:- If you have marked a wrong answer of a relatively easy question the negative marks would be more than that of a more difficult question, its like a punishment for getting an easy question wrong. Thus accuracy will be the utmost criterion in this test.

A few tips to those who will be appearing in the remaining 5 days, I would say relax there have been issues and most of them have been sorted out. But do be prepared to expect the unexpected both in terms of the test and the environment. Please confirm your tesing site not with the students around but with an appointed personnel as soon as you reach the centre. I say this because mine was a group of institutes all located in a 5 km radius and if you were at the wrong lab it would be an awfully long walk to your proper site. And follow the simple rule that we have been thought in our school days- “Don’t discuss your paper”. It will not only benefit you but the others too.


All the Best.