WHEN THE IIMS have reported a virus attack what is the surity of results???????aren't they going to b affected?????????

To begin with this is the worst exam i have ever written. The reasons based on which i say the above are as follows:
1. The environment in the testing is not suitable for writing the examination. In a competitive exam like "CAT" the environment in the exam center should be peaceful. But the great Prometric centers have a environment where the invigilators or what you say as Proctors use their mobile phones in the examination hall. The worst think which i want to raise here is you frame rules for the people who take the examination that the candidate's mobile phones are not allowed into the examination hall and don't you frame any rules for the invigilators or proctors in the examination hall? I heard many mobile phones of the proctors ringing in the middle of the exam. Proctors are in conversations while we are giving the examination
2. I have taken a morning slot in the CAT examination window for giving my examination on 30th November. Unfortunately the exam did not start at 10.00AM as mentioned in the timing sheet. There is a power shutdown in the center. As mentioned in the initial instructions there was a mention of the point that "All Prometric centers are provided with UPS backup". I do not get the reason why the CAT initial release mentioned this.
3. I have started the examination at 10.30 AM after the restart of my system in the midst of the disturbances which the prometric proctors cause for not switching off their mobile phones. After 20 min or so of the start of the exam the proctors announced us to restart the systems. This is the worst part of the test. Unfortunately i was doing the Reading Comprehension part of the CAT examination. I have read half of my Passage and suddenly they asked us to do the restart. I have to spend another 10 min in reading the passage again from the start. And after the restart the exam has started from the point where it has stopped.
4. We have resumed the examination after the restart. All went fine for 10 min. Then there was an error in the application and the exam screen stopped working. The application has got struck. Unfortunately even at the 2nd restart i was doing another Reading Comprehension section of the CAT Examination. I have read half of the paragraph and i was unable to scroll down the passage. And a message stating an error has popped up. They asked us to restart the system again. I had to spend another 10 min in reading the whole paragraph again. In a competitive exam like CAT, every second is precious.
We have expected a retest when the second restart has happened. I raised this issue with the proctor of prometric at the exam center. She has just given a glance and not even given any verbal reply for the question asked.
There i end with all the surprising and embarrassing occurrences which happened in the examination of CAT. I have lost a minimum of 15 min in the CAT examination because of the two restarts which have happened. I have never expected this in CAT examination. This is the worst and disorganized CAT which has ever happened.
I have performed bad in this test because of the events which happened in the center. And when I call the cat help they redirected my call to a prometric center and the official who spoke to me has told me that as I have given my completed my test there is nothing they could for the events happened.
The responses which I get when I called from prometric are not satisfactory

Coming straight to my queries:

1> How does IIMs or prometric insure that all the answers we have marked to actually get considered for score calculation. What if the marked answers werent uploaded normally or after the crash during the test which could be resumed later on.

2> How is the percentile going to be calculated?

3> How about the unfair advantage which people have got after the initial few days about the general paper scheme and the level of difficulty? I have heard some questions were also repeated,atleast similar. And some smart candidates have used the crash time as extra time for solving the questions which they have written on there papers.

4> And lastly how do IIMs insure that this time the CAT score will have the same authenticity it had earlier.

Thanks.

It was a good move by IIMs to go for online format. As it is the first time there can be a problem but in this scale is what not acceptable from a reputed institutes like IIMs. My question is that is it mandatory for a candidate to be 2hrs early before the actual exam starts and go through all those security check ups. I think the security check up time should be reduced and the number of slots should be increased from 2 to 3 especially on saturdays and sundays so that more number of working people will be able to take the exam without any problem.

Most of the Media focus is on the number of students who couldn't give the exam on the scheduled date but what about those who gave the exam in an environment that couldn't meet any standards.There were many people who were indirectly affetced by the CBT. Many people had to stay in the examination center for more than 5-6hours. Many People had to give the exam in lot of noise,chaos and panic.Many peole couldn't concentrate on the exam due the poor organizing of the exam.In an exam like CAT where everything counts,aren't these factors enough for some candidates to lose?

Hi,

You are doing a great work tracking the CAT. But why are you only reporting about Banglore and Lucknow ? I had my CAT today, at SRM University Chennai and the exam got cancelled here too.

I would like to know from Prometric weather there software was compatible with System or not.
1. Whats the processor they are using ?
2. RAM in the system.
3. Version of O/S used?

I hope the above three also might have impacted these glitches as you just cannot come clean naming an unknown virus.
I am pretty sure that just to same money Prometric must have compromised with quality of systems used.That is now haunting them.

My grandson gave his CAT 2009 Exam today i.e. 1 Dec. 2009 in Faridabad, at there centre the computers hanged during the last five minutes, they were not able to attempt ques. Move to next ques. But the time kept running and eventually it came you run out of time so he could not attempt a few ques. At the end. This is a cruelty to the aspirations of the test takers and the IIM must take responsibility and do some thing.

Today (Day 4)the CAT exam at priyadarshini college,Nagpur was canceled.After waiting for over five hours, we were told that because of technical problems there would be no exam.Prometric says they will reschedule the exam, but when we don't know.For how many days these technical glitches are going to continue??
IIMs should immediately revert back to paper pencil pattern to maintain there reputation.

hi, i am nidhin from Bangalore.
I am taking CAT this year on dec5 and heard about the troubles happening everyday.
This is going to have an impact on the results of a lot of aspirants who are having trouble in the online edition.
I want to take your attention to a serious problem that has been overlooked.That is whether there is any mechanism which makes sure about registering all the marked answers after a system hanging or crashing.
Since this is an online exam,there is no way to know after some time,whether all the answers marked by the candidate has been registered in the server.The candidate has no proof unlike last year when as a proof he can always ask for his OMR sheet.

regards,
Nidhin