Hello everyone..its July and for many budding managers the CAT season has just begun.With more than 2 lakh candidates writing the CAT last year ,it is by far the most difficult,thou8gh not exactly the toughest MBA exam in the world.So with IIMs deciding to take their pet CAT online this year..wat does it mean for an average MBA aspirant and does online cat do what any entrance exam is supposed to do...pick up the good apples from the rotten ones?Lets analyse it all belkow :)
As per the latest notification avaliable on IIM websites..all we know is CAT wont be an adaptive test,neither would the dates be flexible and above all..u wont be able to take the test more than once...so for all of you who were hoping that maybe this year the sentence "it was not my day" would be heard less were just guessing wrong
So IIM's as per their elitist and chauvnist attitude clearly dont want to recognise the fallacies that exist in their entrance structure.With a skewed demand supply ration and a probabilty factor of 0.995 working against any candidate taking the exam ..i would bet there is more luck involved in belling the CAT than trading derivatives or winning a raffel ticket.
Let us first analyse the reasons which put online tests in front seat when compared to written tests:
Easy regulation:Yes boy when the paper says 2 hours thats all you would get nothing more nothing less
Adaptive Test:So maybe you would runh out of luck ..maybe
Secrecy:Yeah no more press leakages and no more need of 5 different set of question papers
multiple Papers: question paper generating programs can generate any no. of papers of same difficulty level from a fixed question paper
And now lets see the disadvantages:
Infrastructure: Oops how will you arrange for 2.3 lac computers
Cost:Yeah those bastards increased the CAF fees to rs 1400 :(..and promise that more is in store
Computer Literacy:Now did Dhirubhai AMbani knew computers when he established reliance..why do iims think all prospective maagers must be computer geeks when they enter IIMs
Inequality:Yeah what if your computer hangs between the test...with kind of infrastructure we have in India..anything is possible :(
So looking at above reasons the only advantage i see of IIMs moving on to the online version of CAT is that they would be able to control leakages more efficiently..which mean incident like repeating CAT in 2003 would be history..Besides that IIMs have failed to move on with aspirations of most candidates..many of whom are frustated because they cant get into IIms because luck has started playing too big a role in CAT ....with RC's DI questions and quant questions of varying difficulties distributed throughout the paper..choosing questions has become more of a play of dice than talent..Seriously its high time that we move on to an adaptive test format in which the computer adjust the difficulty level of paper according to candidates performance to keep the "luck" factor at minimum.
Besides this CAT needs to ove beyond an IQ based paper.Research has shown that a high IQ does not really guarantee a good manager..what is mopre important is a healthy mix of EQ and IQ to become a good manager..CAT has been sticking to the IQ base for a long time now..and "change" is way of life..so before the demand supply ration moves against the IIM's ..its high time they show some leadership and bring innovation in CAT.
Lastly IIms have been established with public money and therfore they need to ensure equal oppurtunity to all sections of society.With rising need of rural infrastructure and rural based industries ..IIMs need to ensure that candiadates from rural sector are bred into modern managers so they cna bring development to the parts of country that need it the most.Online cat just puts all such candidates ..a distant second...and strengthens the preception that corporate carrers and enterprenuersip is only for city boys and girls...cmon nothing could be farther from truth..infact by making CAT an online exam..IIMs are just denying some ppl their fundamental right to equality
Lastly I would just like to say leadership is all about vision ..and ability to see beyond the horizon..by copying others or refusing to keep your whiums and fancies silent..you are not the leader but the "doomed " one
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