CAT 2010: What we liked, what we did not on Day 1

First-day first-show at the CAT is over, and no untoward incidents have been reported until now. Two of us from the PaGaLGuY HQ attended the 10 am slot test at two different centres in Mumbai and Pune.

We have written down our experiences in the form of a timeline.

Apurv Pandit
October 27, 10 am slot, Sri Balaji Society, Pune

I reached the centre around 7:30 am at Sri Balaji Society Group of Institutes campus, just a few hundred meters off the Pune-Mumbai Highway near the Wakad flyover. There was good parking space for both two-wheelers and four-wheelers on campus, so I parked mine and arrived in front of the building entrance that had 'CAT 2010 Test Center' written on it.

The crowd was quite thin with barely a couple of hundred candidates -- nothing compared to the mega-congregation of candidates one has come to expect outside CAT centres.

I spoke to a few candidates waiting outside. Many weren't really from Pune, but from towns near Pune such as Satara, Ahmednagar, etc. One guy was sullen because he had forgotten his CAT voucher. Everybody immediately asked him to call someone to deliver it to him as there were still 45 minutes to go until 8.30 am. But unfortunately for him he was from Satara, about 120 kms from Pune.

Around 8 am, we were asked to enter the centre and start the checking-in process. Immediately upon entering, we were asked to fill in our name, CAT registration number, mobile number and e-mail address in a register. The register was a standard register and didn't have any Prometric branding on it, yet we were being made to fill it as if it were part of the checking-in process. So I asked one of the attendants why we were asked to fill it. He vaguely replied that it was being asked for security reasons. It was unconvincing, as no security register ever asks for a CAT registration number or e-mail address. When I asked the attendant if the Balaji Society b-schools would use the data to send e-mail and SMS promotion to me, he simply asked me to leave the mobile and e-mail fields blank.

After filling up the register, I climbed to the fourth floor, where all the testing labs were located. After frisking us and checking our documents, they sealed our belongings such as mobile phones, wallets, stationery, keys, in a bag and gave us a token. They then took my photograph and fingerprints at the biometric kiosk and within 15 minutes, I was allotted a computer. The process was pretty smooth and the staff seemed sure of what they were doing.

I was allocated a computer at around 8:20 am. Thereafter, there was nothing much to do until 9.30 am except stare at others. I went off to sleep and noticed that many others were doing the same. I could guess that many would have woken up around 5 am to reach this centre in time, especially those who were coming from opposite ends of Pune city.

I woke up with a jolt at 9.30 am. Instruction sheets with dos and don't's were passed to us along with a pencil, an eraser and a stapled set of blank papers (12 sides) for rough work.

I could spot a total of seven distinct invigilators who were making periodic appearances in my room. After 9.30 am, they started making announcements one after another -- about the rules, that we should look at the tutorial before starting the exam, etc. Soon after, they logged us in to a screen that showed two buttons. 'Start test' and 'Start tutorial'. We were asked to not touch either until announced to do so.

10 am arrived and people started getting impatient. At 10.04 am (according to the computer screen clock), we were finally asked to begin. I took a quick look at the 15-minute tutorial and then started the test. A pointer here -- the tutorial can be seen only once, so don't skim through it expecting that you could restart it for a detailed look later. Go through it once, and go through it well.

The test started. Same pattern as announced -- 20 questions each in Data Interpretation/ Logical Reasoning, Verbal Ability and Quantitative Ability. The paper was relatively easy, except for about a dozen questions which qualified as above-average tough. Except for around half a dozen questions from quant which were really tough and required conceptual understanding, the rest of the paper was easy to moderate in terms of difficulty. Since I hadn't prepared for even a minute, it took me time to revisit the concepts from my memory to solve the questions. But I could figure that somebody who's been in the loop would have done them faster.

There was one question with which I had a problem. It was a question involving sets, where the relationship between two sets was established with a symbol, ostensibly a subset or a superset symbol. That symbol appeared as a box on my screen, the kind that appears in Windows when it tries to render an unrecognised character. I made a complaint to the invigilators, but they were rigidly uncooperative in getting the error clarified. "The test is just as it has been sent by Prometric. We cannot do anything about it," was their flat reply.

After 2 hours and 15 minutes, the test ended. The invigilators waited for everyone in the room to finish and then proceeded to collect the rough papers, pencil and erasers lent to us. Around 12:45 pm, we were asked to leave the centre and after collecting my personal belongings by submitting the token, I was out of the centre.

Vasundhara Vyas
October 27, 10 am slot, Institute of Business Studies and Research, Navi Mumbai

I took the CAT after eight years and in a completely new avatar. Though I was a little nervous when I entered the test centre, I consoled myself that if I got lucky, I will have the technical glitches to blame it all on. After all my first experience with CAT 2002 wasn't all that great either. But to my very pleasant surprise there were no glitches and I could sit through the test, attempting more questions than I expected. Here's how my second encounter with CAT went:

I was lucky to have the CAT test centre within walking distance from my home. Since I had not visited the centre before, I took an auto and was there in less than three minutes. It was almost 8:45 am by then and I was praying that they allow me to enter. I was told by everybody to be at the centre two hours before, so the tension was evident. But as I spotted the entrance of the building and started climbing the stairs, there was a faculty members standing there to guide me. She took a look at my admit card, highlighted my Test ID, and my name and asked me to proceed to the fifth floor.

On the fifth floor was the security desk, where one male guard, one female guard and several faculty members were waiting for candidates. I was asked to switch off my cell phone and surrender all my belonging. Prepared for this, I had not carried anything besides a little cash and my house keys. In one minute, the officials asked my thrice to deposit my belongings. Then the lady guard took me to a empty room for further checking.

Once through security, I was asked to start the registration process. I took my place in front of a webcam, got my picture their CAT vouchers, admit cards, photo-identity cards and if applicable, their caste certificates.