CAT is going online – The story till now

After threatening for more than 3 years, CAT is finally going online. And this means BIG changes for a CAT aspirant. And till the IIMs become kind enough to give more clarity to their potential students (the wannabe MBAs), there is confusion and questions galore in their minds.

What is the official information that IIMs or Prometric ETS have as of yet given out (As on June 8th)

1. Online CAT will be conducted over a period of 10 days, sometimes in the second half of November. In a day, the test will be held three times in a day.
2. Prometric ETS of the US will manage and administer the test, and provide the computer based testing platform. Prometric also conducts GRE and ToEFL worldwide. The content will be designed by IIM professors who make up the CAT committee.
3. The cost of taking the test for the student will be marginally higher than last year.
4. The test will not be an adaptive test like the GMAT or the GRE. i.e. it does not seek to identify the exact aptitude level of the student by increasing or decreasing the levels of difficulty of the questions based on responses to previous questions. For IIMs CAT, a predesigned test will be administered to a student. However different students would get different set of questions. Hence theoretically there would be a database of questions of predefined difficulty levels and the all students will overall receive questions of the same level.
5. There are multiple versions of the test (reports say 30) that will be administered. i.e. for 10 days × 3 test times a day.
6. The nature of the test, however, will remain the same and CAT candidates can carry paper and pencil for rough work and will be able to go back and forward in the online format as well.
7. There would be security features like fingerprinting, digital recording and manual invigilation at the test centres.
8. An on-screen timer will continuously advise candidates as to the amount of time remaining.
9. Scores will be made available to examinees several weeks after the end of the 10 day testing window.

There are many questions that are still unanswered. Let’s explore their probable answers:

1. The actual dates are yet to be announced, but it is likely that it will be spread over two weekends to ensure that people with work experience (and are currently working) have a good probability to take the test on weekends. So the likely dates are either around 13th to 22nd or November 20th to 29th.
2. Do you get to choose the actual date or IIMs give you a random date on any of those 10 days? The IIMs release says that “Students can choose their own date, as the test will be spread over 10 days”. However, what happens if 25% of the students choose a particular date. Obviously some of the students would be given another date by the IIMs. So is it likely that the IIMs would ask the students to choose their 3 most convenient dates or something on those lines. However, it is still possible that more number of students than the current capacity (in terms of infrastructure) choose a particular set of dates.
3. Our analysis shows that even with using randomization theory, it is unlikely that IIMs would be able to satisfy 100% of the students from their set of chosen dates. A likely reason for this is that more students are likely to choose from the last few days of the 10 day period to take advantage of other test takers knowledge and experience of the CBT environment and that there would be a good idea about the pattern of the paper and questions.
4. If there are 30 versions of the test, does that mean that all students taking the exam at a particular time slot will get the same questions? Possibly yes. However, students could get the questions in different sequences, just like the old practice of the CAT to have 4 different papers with the same set of questions.
5. How many questions will the test have? My guess is that it is likely to be around 75, maybe even marginally lesser. GMAT has 75 questions, is easier compared to CAT and the MCQ questions section are to be completed in 2.5 hours. CAT has already moved to be a 2.5 hours test, and has flirted with 75 questions in the last few years (2006 and 2007). Moving to a new platform will add an additional pressure on the student. IIMs have two options if they want to increase the questions from the existing 90 (CAT 2008). Make the test easier or increase test duration. They are not likely to go the first way as they publicly proclaim that they are proud that CAT is the toughest test in the world. And increasing the test duration is not possible due to logistical issues under a CBT format. So it is likely to be 90 or lesser number of questions. I would go with a lesser number so that the decrease in questions compensate for the complexity caused by CBT format. After all, it is not the same to answer questions when it takes time to shift between questions and sections, and also that you cannot do scratch work on the screen (next to the questions). My wish-list is however a more balanced test (easier test) with probably a few more questions to offer more choice to students (around a 100).
6. Will you be able to see all questions at one time, or will you be only able to see one question at a time? Can you move between sections, or each section is going to be separately timed? Can your first attempt a Quant question, the second a Verbal and the third a Data Interpretation question? These are the most important questions as these determine test taking strategy.

Technically speaking, ETS has the capability to serve the test in atleast four different formats.

1. One question at a time, with no flexibility to go back and answer a previous question. So either you answer a question when you see it or you skip a question but you cannot come back to it later. This is how GMAT and GRE are currently structured. We predict that this is not likely to be the scenario as this requires the test to be highly scientific and questions to be well researched (prior testing in a simulated environment) as the sequencing of questions alone can make a significant difference in different students’ scores. The IIMs are not likely to use previous CAT questions though they have been tested as those questions are already in the public domain. And neither the IIMs, nor Prometric can test approximately 3000 plus questions sufficiently in the given time on a similar profile of candidates as CAT takers.
2. One question at a time, but with the flexibility to go back and answer a previously unanswered question. So either you answer a question when you see it or you skip a question but you can come back to it later. In this format, you would also have the flexibility to change your answers to a particular question that is already answered. This is a good method especially if the software allows you quick navigation to come back to an unanswered question and allows you to mark questions that you may want to come back to. In this format, prior testing of questions is not a very high pre-requisite. There is a probability that this format could be used, albeit low. This is because CAT has always been a test that requires a good test taking strategy (time management, time allocation between sections, managing surprises in test), and in this format, that does not get sufficiently tested. Especially true because the IIMs are not likely to make a significant departure in future test structures in the online testing scenario, and the deal with Prometric is for 5 years. If implemented, this would take the zing out of CAT and it would become a mechanical test of solving questions.
3. One section at a time. In this format all questions within a section would be easily accessible on a scrollable page. Maneuverability between sections and sectional time limits are variables that IIMs can play with that can change the rules of the paper. Initiating either of both leads to limiting the test strategies. Our guess would be that the IIMs would use neither of them.
4. This would mean that IIMs are likely to present a format which is exactly the same as current CAT, with the only difference being that it is on the CBT format. So 75 to 100 questions in different sections, with the flexibility to the student to jump to any section at any time, and within a section being able to see all the questions at one time. Based on inputs from industry experts and our analysis team, this seems to be the most probable scenario.

Ok, so it is possible that there are multiple options. Does it mean that your CAT prep strategy needs to change? Yes, definitely. In the next article we write on changes in test prep strategies. We have compared the transition of CAT from paper based test to CBT with the similar transition in GMAT a decade ago. There is rich learning in the issues faced by students at that point of time and what did successful students do differently. Also the changes made by leading GMAT test prep companies have been analyzed