CAT ends, students brace up for other tests

The Common Admission Test (CAT) draws to a close on Friday. With 2.05 lakh students having appeared for the test, which began on October 22, the race for cracking other management entrances will now gather greater momentum. Shaswati Das reports.

The Common Admission Test (CAT) draws to a close on Friday. With 2.05 lakh students having appeared for the test, which began on October 22, the race for cracking other management entrances will now gather greater momentum.

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For students who did not quite make the cut with this year's CAT exam, several upcoming tests, such as XAT, SNAP, IIFT and TISS, can provide to be a ray of hope.

"I didn't fare up to my expectation. But I'm looking for the upcoming management entrances. The next one is IIFT, after which I'll be appearing for XAT," said Pratik Sharma, a CAT aspirant. While this time's paper surprised the students due to the change in paper pattern, many felt that the paper was better organised than other years.

"The paper was divided into two, with English and Quant as standalone sections. Few of us missed out on several questions in the quantitative section because 70 minutes were not enough. But this pattern is better structured than the earlier years," said Karan Arora, a student of Delhi University.

The Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) however, are remaining tight-lipped about the expected cut-offs this year.

"It is too difficult to predict the cut-off for the IIMs this year. All we can say is that it will be mostly similar to last year's cut-off mark," said Janaki Raman Moorthy, convener, CAT 2011.

He also added that several students had been barred from taking the exam since no proper identification had been produced.