The Perfect Case Study - CAT 2009

 Finally , the curtains have been raised and the results have been declared . Alas !! , what I find , is a graveyard . What was I expecting -  "The  Valley of flowers " ? Who am I fooling - myself ? Wasn't it expected after the way it was conducted ? I guess the fate was sealed the day IIMs decided to continue with the online tests and plea of Joka and thousands aspirants were crucified at the altar of the ego of the self-proclaimed Super Brains of India.
  Thank You Prometric.Thank you Mr. Deodhar. Deodhar Sir made a statement - "Students should feel proud that they are going to be part of something historical". Yes Sir, I am really feel fortunate/unfortunate  to be part of it. The only parallel in the World History/ Mythology that can be drawn with this is "Draupadi Cheer Haran". We - the Indians deserved it. Who cares - what injustice has been done ? Who cares how our fate has been sealed ? We will curse our fate for a month , vent out our anger at some public forums and again , will get back to solving RCs and Quants , to play the game of poker the next year.  You have done a splendid job in adding the much needed - awe and luck factor to the CAT examination .Thanks for ruining the future of thousands of so-called non-deserving aspirants who were carefully eliminated in an aptitude test designed to select the best of the minds of the country. Thanks for showing us - the lesser mortals - a new way to crack the CAT - riding on the luck rather than your labour and intelligence.

   Well ,  after almost a month of self-introspection, soul-searching and careful analysis of my preparation, I totally failed to figure out where I lost out except for perhaps choosing the wrong slot/ centre. So , for a change I decided to examine the whole system which was carefully constructed to select the best-future managers , in a descriptive , well-constructed and analytical manner.

Publisher Note  : The following analysis of the CAT have been done with utmost care ( Statistically , 500% more than the one with which CAT 09 was conducted ) and each of the points mentioned in favour / against the CAT -09 are more than 100% true to the knowledge of the author and will be totally backed up with the proofs on demand (only for the concerned authorities).


The story begins on 31 August, 2009 with the CAT advertisement coming out  and dates for Voucher sale being announced. Cometh the day, 09 -Sep-2009 , there were long queues at the designated Axis Bank centres where the CAT vouchers were being sold.  People rushed to the centres to get the vouchers as the Exam Centre / Slot was to be allotted on first-come-first-serve basis rather than the traditional random( God knows what) basis. Filling the form was an online exercise.

1) Online Application Form Filling : The website was designed and maintained by Prometric. I will not deny the fact that there was an instruction guide provided to the candidates to help them in filling the form.

a)Server Crash : But , as usual it happens with all the major exams of India , the server crashes on the day when it is expected to work. How can Prometric be the exception. The server crashed as soon as the candidates starting making the hits to the site. But, here the difference was , the students were not viewing the results , but , filling the form. The panic started setting up in the candidate - when he sees a bank page after filling Page .Which on refreshing , he finds the previous data are gone , all to guarantee - It at all wasn't a smooth affair. The delay due to this meant loosing out to your favourite slot - the herculean effort which you had put up in getting out of bed before 7 was wasted.

b) Faulty software design : Compulsory fields not marked as mandatory - The fields for the marks of Class 10, 12 , graduation etc and other relevant details which are mandatory for getting the IIM calls , were not marked as mandatory , means , you can save and submit your details without entering them . I wont say IIMs/ Prometric are completely at fault for this , as it is expected from the future mangers to be alert enough to enter these details. But, I feel for the first-timers aspirants who had no prior knowledge of what CAT demands. And to that the recurring server crashes where the details entered by you weren't saved.
 No Edit /Summary : The software designed was such a crap that it didn't even found it suitable to show a Summary page to the candidates of all the details that he has entered . Nor was the edit facility given to facilitate the editing of the details for the window period in which application can be submitted.
Wrong Data :  Prometric sent mails to the students at the designated email id with all the details that they entered and to my surprise , many a students received mails as Centre - Hyderabad State - Arunachal Pradesh. It was really a pathetic state of affair and a matter of shame of the developers who developed that site that event the data were not getting stored correctly.
Result : Many candidates submitted the half-filled application form. A few of them also ,went on to purchase a fresh voucher. A lot of hue and cry was raised over by the students and Coaching students and that resulted in the "Edit facility" being given to the student after the window period was over. I am grateful to IIMs for this , but , who is accountable for the trauma we students faced.

c) No email account :  Taking a reference from the XAT , which also facilitates the Online-application filling , provides an email account of its own to its candidates. CAT didn't found it necessary to provide an email account of its own and left the candidates to the mercy of third-party email providers to store all the important   data. What would have candidate done had the third party has closed its operation before the CAT ? IIMs please , answer this .

d) Pathetic Customer Care : The customer care was really pathetic in responding to the candidates queries and were ill-equipped with the information to answer the questions .The way they kept transferring the calls from one department to another only aggravated the miseries of the candidate.

e) Changing the exam centre without notifying :  God knows what prompted the Promteric to change the     examination centre for a few sparring candidates and that too without any explanation for doing so. A candidate who has meticulously planned his schedule according to the date and venue , which was confirmed earlier , were changed adding more to the already traumatised student.

Anyway , all the aspirants kept on their hard work and preparation meanwhile , inspite of the so much distractions.I salute their focus and determination.

 2) Demo / Mock Test :  IIMs did come up with a demo test -consisting of  5 questions - what purpose did they meant to serve by this . One can only have a look at the software look and yes , confirm , we navigate to previous/ next questions and indeed , the examination will be Computer Based Test not , the Computer Adaptive Test. Inspite of the repetitive pleas for a national wide mock test to test the server and software in real production environment , IIMs kept a deaf ear to all these .The sole reason I believe is they were running out of time in development of the software and I still , believe that the software was put into production without the proper testing . Although , its my personal feeling, I have no document to support this claim of mine.

3) Non-disclosure Agreement - A joke in the Internet Age : Well , just three days before the CAT exam , IIMs and Prometric comes up with the NDA - Non-disclosure agreement , where a candidate was not allowed to discuss the questions of examinations after the exam. I would like to take a bow to the man who framed this . I haven't seen a bigger foolish than you. In the internet age , you expect the people , not to share the questions . First of lets examine ,what could have forced them come up with such a foolish act

a) Why NDA ?  As I had already mentioned , I believe the software development team was running behind the scheduled and neither the development was good nor was proper testing done . The officials came to know just 3 -days before the exam.( Yes , I believe the testing began hardly a week before the exam), that the questions are bound to be repeated as the software will simply fetch the questions from the database. This forced them to come up with this act in hurry , so cover up their mistakes.

b) How much feasible it was ?   Was it ever possible to stop a candidate to share the questions that came in the exam he has appeared in . How can we trace him - he can share it orally , he can send it letters, postcards, emails to the friends , and the worst , he can put up those questions in public forum . I guess , IIMs made a blunder here , how will they trace a person on internet ? Questions were shared on public forums , mail chains , private chat groups and coaching classes . People who were lucky enough to give the exam after 10 days , were not only knowing the pattern , but also having a question bank of 300+ questions .Faculties of coaching classes who took the exams on the initial days , went ahead to share the questions with their students. Who is responsible for this ? What has IIM done to check the flow and spreading of questions ? Was it able to catch anyone and punish him ? The answer is straight NO . They not even cared to check what was happening ,  it was just an excuse to hide their own mistake and the least - they cared about it . Once again , a big Thank You .


To be Continued .....