This Article is From Feb 01, 2010

Second phase of CAT 2009 concludes

Second phase of CAT 2009 concludes
Ahemdabad: The second phase of computer based Common Admission Test (CAT) 2009 concluded with around 2,000 odd candidates appearing for the re-test at 26 centres across the country on Sunday.

"CAT-2009 second phase concluded today with around 2000 odd candidates appearing for the re-test today. On day one of the second phase yesterday, 65-70 per cent out of the 7,400 candidates scheduled, appeared for re-test",  said Satish Deodhar, convener of CAT-2009 at Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A).
     
"With the conclusion of second phase it seems that it was a minuscule segment of students who made large noises about the technical glitches," Deodhar said.

"The results of CAT-2009 are scheduled to be declared in third week of February," he added.

"It will take at least 10 days for uploading the results, so a call on declaring CAT-2009 results early than the scheduled date can only be taken after that," sources at IIM-A said.

According to sources at the IIM-A, directors of all the IIMs are slated to meet next month to review the newly introduced computer based CAT.
   
A total of 2.41 lakh students had applied for CAT in 2009. While 2.16 lakh candidates could satisfactorily appear in the test during the 11-day testing window last year, nearly 10,500 odd students could not take on the exam in first phase due to virus attacks and hardware problems and had opted for re-test.

Computer based CAT-2009 in first phase was marred by technical glitches from the very first day as students faced problems in logging on to the computers at centres in Gujarat, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Bhopal.

The CAT glitches were attributed by the IIMs and Prometric, the American firm jointly conducting the test, to virus attacks and some hardware problems.

Prometric has been awarded a USD 40-million contract by the IIMs to computerise the prestigious CAT exam.
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