The Common Admission Test (CAT) for the year 2015 will be held only on one day, with two sessions, IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the convenor for CAT 2015, has announced.

The test period for CAT, which is carried out for admission to Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and other top business schools in India, used to be over a week till the year 2013. However, the testing period was reduced to two days, with four sessions, last year.

In addition, the number of exam centres has been increased from last year’s 99 to 115 this year.

Meanwhile, IIM-A also declared that the testing centres for women aspirants will be allotted closer to their city of residence.

“A single-day test will enhance the operational efficiency and quality of the test content. The decision was unanimous and was taken after a CAT group meeting,” said CAT convenor for 2015 Tathagata Bandyopadhyay.

Academicians say that the scoring and controversial normalisation of marks — (equating scores of students based on the difficulty level of the exam) will become easier and transparent, with the single-day test. It will also prompt more students to appear for the exam.

“The normalisation of marks will become easier as the pattern of questions and the difficulty level will be the same. In 2013, there were 40 sessions of exams and the score for each session would be normalised as per the difficulty level of the questions. It was a herculean task that also led to gaffes. I hope this change is for good,” said a former CAT convenor.

In the year 2013, CAT was caught in a legal tangle over its normalisation process, with students alleging discrepancies in the raw marks and percentile.

Some students also filed court cases asking IIMs to make available all raw scores before admissions. However, the cases were later dismissed.

Every year, around two lakh candidates register for this important management entrance exam.

Source: hindustantimes.com
 

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