Come November and we can see an agog feverish anticipation in the eyes of the students all over India for something they call CAT(Common Admission Test).The discussion forums,newspapers,television news channels and even the music channels do their bit, lest we forget.Lakhs of students in India hinge their future on this one exam,locking themselves up in their homes, neglecting their regular college exams, writing mock examinations; working professionals pray that nothing important comes up during these two months and some even apply for a long leave.So,why is CAT such an important exam in India?
We Indians have an age old habit of overdoing things.Deifying people and exam toppers is just another facet of it.As soon as a child is born most of the middle class parents would want him to become a doctor or an engineer, and if he has to become an engineer he has to graduate from nothing less than an IIT.So, they start insinuating this prejudice into their minds that all other colleges are mere buildings.During his undergraduate days this kid is told that a technical degree alone is not sufficient to make dough,you need to have a post graduation degree in management as well and from an institute no less than an an IIM,India's premier business school.Lucky if he makes it on the first count,but just in case he is not successful,which is usually the case with millions across the country,he is made to believe that those who make it to these top institutes are first rate citizens and others are mere ordinary individuals.And so every year they put their heart and soul to prepare for this One exam,CAT.
Among the people who apply, there are some serious aspirants as well,who have a set plan in mind and look at MBA not just as a mere money making educational qualification but as an extension to to their profile.But,the percentage of such people is pretty low.The majority doesn't even know why it wants to do an MBA.
Early this year the Indian Institutes of Management made an announcement that from this year onwards the entrance exam is going to be computer based giving rise to a series of debates,discussions,speculations and arguments.And Prometric,was given the job of conducting this.For starters,Prometric,an American company,is one of the leading providers of computer based testing and assessment tools,which also includes exams like GMAT,GRE and Microsoft Certification exams,to name a few.So, the possibility of a goof up was 'expected' to be pretty low.Prometric also did its part in ensuring that there are no surprises for the students on the day of the exam by releasing videos and sending frequent mailers to the applicants.
But,Murphy had the last laugh.The exams opened to a catastrophic start,various technical issues arose, including the computers failing to boot, biometric devices not responding to some as severe as servers crashing at some centres,preventing approximately 2000 exams from being delivered across 50 labs.The authorities though continued to downplay the total incident attributing it to some silly reasons.
I got some pretty interesting responses on my Facebook page on this issue.Praveen felt that the management people needed a refresher course in technology,he also observed that such a fiasco could have been avoided had they taken care of some basic practices or even run it in a beta phase and had tested on a select group of people.Bharath, an ex-IIM graduate, on the other hand felt these were just some teething errors.
Among the people who apply, there are some serious aspirants as well,who have a set plan in mind and look at MBA not just as a mere money making educational qualification but as an extension to to their profile.But,the percentage of such people is pretty low.The majority doesn't even know why it wants to do an MBA.
Early this year the Indian Institutes of Management made an announcement that from this year onwards the entrance exam is going to be computer based giving rise to a series of debates,discussions,speculations and arguments.And Prometric,was given the job of conducting this.For starters,Prometric,an American company,is one of the leading providers of computer based testing and assessment tools,which also includes exams like GMAT,GRE and Microsoft Certification exams,to name a few.So, the possibility of a goof up was 'expected' to be pretty low.Prometric also did its part in ensuring that there are no surprises for the students on the day of the exam by releasing videos and sending frequent mailers to the applicants.
But,Murphy had the last laugh.The exams opened to a catastrophic start,various technical issues arose, including the computers failing to boot, biometric devices not responding to some as severe as servers crashing at some centres,preventing approximately 2000 exams from being delivered across 50 labs.The authorities though continued to downplay the total incident attributing it to some silly reasons.
I got some pretty interesting responses on my Facebook page on this issue.Praveen felt that the management people needed a refresher course in technology,he also observed that such a fiasco could have been avoided had they taken care of some basic practices or even run it in a beta phase and had tested on a select group of people.Bharath, an ex-IIM graduate, on the other hand felt these were just some teething errors.
Some of the more serious questions remain unanswered though,couldn't something as simple as hardware to software incompatibility be avoided?Couldn't the invigilators at the test venues be given a small briefing on how to handle what or troubleshoot?Shouldn't they have been prepared for something as obvious and as imminent as a server crash or slow delink?These things are taken care of even at a scale as small as college technical fest, this was still CAT,one of the biggest exams in India.
Whatever the reason,one of the toughest and most anticipated management entrance exams painted a very sorry and not so perfect image of the current state of affairs in India; with two of the best in their league(IIMs and Prometric) coming together and yet failing to deliver when everyone was watching,when it was required and when they definitely had to.
Whatever the reason,one of the toughest and most anticipated management entrance exams painted a very sorry and not so perfect image of the current state of affairs in India; with two of the best in their league(IIMs and Prometric) coming together and yet failing to deliver when everyone was watching,when it was required and when they definitely had to.
12 comments:
In fact a sad start.
But yeah, IIMs still be the same, they know how to come over. For the management at IIMs who debates the toughest of the toughest management cases & problems, all it takes is just another brainstorming session to make decisions & strategies to come back & keep up the spirits of 1million aspirants.
CAT craze continues & will always be the toughest exam in the world.
I agree with Winny.Having said that, I am very confident that the smartest brains can overcome this small teething problem by using appropriate strategies through brainstorming.
CAT, I am not sure is the toughest exam in the world..CAT is the most competitive exam in the world, given the number of ppl who take it..There is a subtle difference in being a tough exam and a competitve exam.Tough exam tests ur ability to tackle difficult problems..Competitive exam on the other hand is a test of ur strategies..Lets get this rite
Beats me how the IIM's are being blamed for the fiasco. It is Prometric's fault that all this is happening. IMO, IIM's and their problem solving tactics are nowhere in involved.
IIM's outsourced the job to Prometric, which kinda messed it up.
As for the toughest exam part, its subjective, and i feel its not. Civil Services, IMO is the toughest.
Peace.
Although it can be said that it is Prometric's fault,i still believe IIM'S hav a role to play because the decision of westernizing the exam by eliminating conventional one was taken by them.
We always were expecting something may go wrong when IIm's announced that cat is going online and so did it happen.
Hope for the best in coming days of cat ...
Stating what likwidmark said, why are the IIM's being blamed? The job WAS outsourced. But then, when you give it a thought - regardless of the project being outsourced or not - it is THE C.A.T ; an exam 1 million students look forward to every year to join, not Prometric but the IIM's.
So Praveen was right, beta tests had to conducted and invigilators had to be briefed. After all, if that's the picture which the IIMs potray in "upgrading" their technology - it sure as hell ain't pretty !
What up K? ;)
@Pradyut
Ultimate responsibility is the IIMs. CAT=IIM, not Prometric. It is just involved in the process of conducting exam.
And Prometric will not care about the fame of IIMs & CAT. Its the IIM management who will make sure that the Charm of CAT continues.
Watever happend is happned & mite trouble the students one more time in next ten days. It remains as a learning curve.
Civils process is the toughest & not the exam. The Civils exam is subjective to the different streams, so as the IMO to the stream of mathematics. In that way, off late XAT is becoming more tougher than CAT.
@Aam Admi
As the difficulty level goes, yeah... CAT was never the toughest. It considered to be the toughest exam because it tests the real essence & the usage of finest skills one should have to work at the top-notch business environments in limited time.
There has never been a success story of CAT with 100% marks. That sums up.
They say, it is the toughest because, some of the top 1000 brains in the world take CAT & its relative performance. CAT-takers compete with the toughest brains on the earth.
This fiasco as far as I am concerned is being overblown.Some bigger and more expensive plans have fallen face first, who cares about some software application failing to take the heat of probably 'load performance' or whatever in some management entrance test.People! come on now, atleast this is better than the CAT question papers leaking a few years back.
We are used to worst. Aren't we?????
ha ha ha ha!! The media in India needs to get a job.
Let us not be pretentious about this anymore.
IIMs are not being blamed outright...but yeah as Vamsi and Aam Admi said we would expect IIMs to atleast make sure everything is in the right place and going smooth,esp. in cases like these wen there in a huge paradigm shift in the way they are being conducted...
Come on guys!they should have run mock tests on atleast a small scale,even a young 0-2 yrs developer runs test cases on his application...
Guys no offence intended to anyone !! Agreed it is a learning curve but at the cost of million dreams !!
Agreed CAT is the toughest exam (I take back my words for a moment)-- Whats the point, if the fine skills cannot be put into place in such a catastrophy to redeem the situation..Simple exam - A minister goes on air and announces that students can retake the exam on Sunday - Simple Fine Skill - Proper Communication within the machinery--Do we have that? Then whats the point in saying we test the best when we cant communicat the correct message?? Has anyone openly admitted that this was a fiasco..Has anyone taken responsibility ??? Then whats the point in saying it tests the best Quoting Winny - "Top Notch Business Environment in limited time" Is 3 days not limited time to take a stand on this and solve it completely or is the Indian environment not Top Notch or is this not a Businees Environment ??? Can someone ans that fr me pls ?? 3 days running nw..We still see some teething problems.Lets face it !!
Us Indians -- We are never graceful in defeat..We look for scapegoats to blame our shortcomings..And moreover, we glorify things/ppl more than what we shld be doing !! We have been made like this and we intend to stay like this forever !!!
Sorry guys some of my comments might sound harsh..I knw how much ppl in the west look upto India these days..I can give you an Outsiders perspective being an Insider..This is a very sad and it does give me no sort of hapinees !!
Praveen
Guys,as Gaurav said may be I am pulling this too far but I had to comment on this.
I am with Praveen on whatever he has said:
a) Kapil Sibal announcing that people who could not deliver the test on Sat(Day 1) could do so on Sunday(Day 2) before CAT authorities released a presser,even before CAT and Prometric guys could meet and discuss.Break in the communication cord within the machinery.How can the ministry of HRD intervene even before the organising authorities could take stock of the situation.
b) +1 on we are not and never were graceful in defeat.We come up with some excuse.Even our cricketers when out,used to look seriously at their bats,as if it was the bat that did it,'blame it on the bat' principle takes us no where;ironicaly it was blame-it-on-a-computer-virus in this case.Furthermore,we have always been glorifying and making heroes out of mere losers(sample,politicians)
c)If Indians cannot conduct an effective computer based test who else in this world can!!
If it were just some isolated instance of an exam not going the way it was expected to(ignoring the fact that over 7k ppl could not take their exams till day 3 and the glitches continue on Day 4),it would've been alright.But,this says a lot more about our chalta hai attitude and sheer negligence on our part.
First thing.. it is BHARAT.. not as stated. n i am not an "EX" IIM graduate.. i think the graduaiton stays forever..
anyways, lighter things apart, things run on such a scale are bound to hav some issues in the very first year of operation.
True, more than .2 million (it is not 1 million Vamsi) have their lives on it.. so it bound to be right!
true, it is from the IIM's, so there is no scope of mismanagement. and the organisers are hearing the music. the govt. has asked for a report, the coo of prometric has flown down.. things are pretty much serious.
All said and done, lets look at the better side of the wohle process and leave the glitches behind.. n appreciate the initiative!
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