I gave my CAT on November 30, 2009 in Bangalore. This was the first time cat was being conducted in an all new avatar. It was the first computer based test not a computer adaptive test as GMAT or GRE. Being a software engineer my eyes were sufficiently trained to stare at computer screens for a long time, I didn't have as much trouble in adjusting to this new version, though I found solving reading comprehensions and DI questions based on graphs a touch difficult. I had managed to give around 30 mock cats in the on-line format as part of my preparation so I felt fairly confident of putting up a good show.
The test was scheduled at 10:00 AM in the morning and candidates were asked to report at-least two hours prior to the scheduled time to complete the security procedures. I budgeted for Monday morning Bangalore traffic and reached the centre by 7:45 AM. We were then directed to a waiting hall and made to wait for about an hour before candidates were called in groups of ten for fingerprint scanning and our photographs was also taken. We were then given a 15 minutes break to refresh and the test started at around 10:00 AM. I was so happy that things were proceeding without any glitches and we could start on time. I had read enough reports of technical snags in the previous days so I was elated to start on time. Candidates had to sit through a 15 minutes tutorial before they could start with their test. The tutorial was the same as the one which was uploaded on YouTube, so I just glanced through it without paying much attention. At 10:15 all of us started the test. I started with VA , my strongest section and things were progressing well. I had managed to finish off about 10 questions when misfortune struck. An error got displayed on my screen and soon the application delivering the test collapsed. My initial reaction was that it was a problem with my system alone but I soon found out that the whole centre was facing the same problem. It apparently had something to do with the server delivering the test and we soon had frantic prometric staff running around, making calls to their seniors finding out how to resolve the whole issue. I was praying that the whole thing be resolved asap as I had to go back to work once the test was over. I was looking helplessly at the prometric staff and I soon got bored and started feeling sleepy. I then started having a conversation with the guy next to me to shake off my sleep and bingo a prometric staff intervened and cautioned us against talking to one another inside the testing hall. Faced with no other option I decided to dose off and had a reasonably good nap only to be woken up by an announcement by a prometric staff that if the issue was not resolved within another 20 minutes our tests would be rescheduled. I felt like a thunderbolt had been delivered. The problem with rescheduling is that its done according to prometric's convenience and their is a high probability of the test being held in Lucknow or Bhopal at a time which may not be convenient to me.Fortunately the issue was resolved within the deadline and we got to proceed with our test by 12:30. Before proceeding we were offered a break of 15 minutes and I quickly went to the restroom and splashed some water on my face to shake off the sleep. My test was completed by 2:30 PM and I found the difficulty level of the test to be quite low. The conundrum with such a test is that it narrows down the line between students who have prepared well and those with reasonable preparation. There were also some many uncertainties involved this year like the normalization of scores of people giving their tests in different slots and there were also reports of questions being repeated which conferred an advantage to people giving their tests at a later date . This was the time I decided that there was no use worrying about all these things and told myself that I have given the test and there is nothing I can change so let me better concentrate on the upcoming exams.
Everyday there were reports of people facing technical snags in different centres and I decided not to give much hear to them. The most disturbing news however arrived during the third week of January. A good month and a half after the testing window was closed and at a time when results were expected to arrive. The IIMs had arrived at a set of criteria on which the tests would be conducted again based on complaints received by candidates who faced glitches during their test. One criteria was that tests would be rescheduled if the the total time exceeded 140 minutes. I very much fall into this category as my testing time took a total of more than 250 minutes. The retest was to be conducted on 30 and 31 st of January just a day before my IIFT Gd/pi which was scheduled on February 1. This news just drove me crazy. I needed to put in a great deal of preparation for my interviews and if I were to take CAT again I had to start revising them again as I was pretty much out of touch in solving CAT questions. I then decided to call up prometric and by god's grace they informed me that there was no need for me to give the test again and my scores of the test I wrote on November 30 would be considered. I was very much relieved after hearing this news and started off with full swing for my IIFT Gd/pi preparations.
Then came the endless wait for the results. The results were originally scheduled to be declared on January 22 but were postponed to third week of February and then again postponed to end of February. Eventually the results were out on February 28 though only IIM Ahmadabad and Shillong had declared their lists of shortlisted candidates for the next phase of the admission process. IIM Calcutta and Lucknow came up with their respective lists by March 3,IIM Bangalore,Indore and Kozhikode are yet to come up with their list though. After rejects from Ahmadabad, Shillong and Calcutta on account of low scores in quants ,I was extremely elated to find my registration number in Lucknow's list. I hope to get a call from at least one IIM out of B,K and I. Fingers crossed.
