New Delhi, November 29
Hundreds of students were unable to appear in the computer-based Common Admission Test (CAT) for the second day today as authorities rescheduled the test to carry out repairs at the labs where computers suffered virus attack that disrupted the first day of exam.
CAT, being conducted through computers for a period of 10 days from November 28 to December 7, got off yesterday to a troubled start owing to computer virus attacking 24 of the 104 exam centres. The authorities today decided not to hold the test at these affected centres.
Candidates who could not appear the test have been notified and are currently being rescheduled within the testing period, said Prometric, the American firm which has been entrusted with the task of conducting the tests for around 2.41 lakh candidates for admission to IIMs and a few other B-schools.
Around 2,000 students could not appear in the test yesterday due to the virus that affected the computers at about 50 labs in these 24 centres.
“Exhaustive plans were developed and put in place well in advance of the start of the testing window. Unfortunately, the particular viruses and malware that attacked the test delivery system were not detected by the anti-virus software at the testing centres,” said Ramesh Nava, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific, Japan and Africa, Prometric.
Technicians have been dispatched to address these isolated problems, Prometric said.
“Candidates are our first and foremost priority and Prometric is making every effort to provide all CAT aspirants an opportunity to test,” Nava said.
Prometric and the IIMs have put out an announcement in the IIM-CAT website, saying that candidates affected by this closure will also be provided with new appointments within this year's testing period.
However, there was confusion among students on whose exam have been rescheduled. “We were not informed immediately. When there is change in the schedule, we must be informed immediately. The change in the schedule adds pressure on us,” a student said.
Prometric said it has generated new appointments for individuals who could not take the test
and they are in the process of being contacted through SMS and email messages.
The launch of the computerised CAT involved delivery of exams at more than 360 testing labs in 104 centres. “It is an ambitious project but well within the means and experience of Prometric,” Prometric said. Nearly 20,000 candidates completed their exams yesterday, it said.
Months of preparation went into research, item writing, test design and construction, application development and processing, test registration and scheduling, test centre preparation, test administration, scoring and reporting, it said.
“We understand how stressful it is for candidates to adapt to this new computer-based format. We truly regret the additional stress that candidates were subjected to over the first weekend of the CAT 2009, and are doing everything we can to make the rest of the testing experience as smooth as possible,” said Soumitra Roy, Managing Director, India, Prometric.
The computer-based test was marred by technical glitches yesterday soon after the exam was started. Students faced problems in opening the computers at the exam centres in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Bhopal.
The labs that were closed today include 11 in Bangalore, eight in Bhopal, six each in Lucknow and Mumbai, five in Delhi, four in Ghaziabad, two each in Varanasi and Hyderabad and one each in Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Kolkata and Coimbatore.
— PTI
