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CAT candidates for retest, may move court
SEVERAL CANDIDATES who took the Common Admission Test (CAT) held on November 19 have demanded a retest. The IIMs admitted to errors in the CAT paper.
SEVERAL CANDIDATES who took the Common Admission Test (CAT) held on November 19 have demanded a retest. The IIMs admitted to errors in the CAT paper.
Those who took the CAT visited Hindustan Times on Friday and said that they had launched a signature campaign in support of their demand. Kumar Sawrabh, resident of D-1/302, sector F, Jankipuram who took the test from St Fidelis centre here claimed that the signature campaign so far had received support from 1,000 candidates and others angry with anomalies in the CAT, from the city itself.
Akhilesh Bajpai, resident of 386 Janki Vihar Colony, Jankipuram, who appeared for the test at Mahanagar Boys centre said that they would move court if the committee set up by IIMs to look into the reasons for the error in the CAT paper didn’t hold a retest. Kumar Sawrabh and Akhilesh have also created several blogs on the Internet like shouldtherebecatretest.blogspot.com, logicbehindthecatretest.blogspot.com, pagalguy.com/forum/CAT to register their protest.
“We have received support from over 5,000 students through the Net already. We have sent a copy of the memorandum, citing reasons for the retest, to President, Union HRD minister and the IIMs concerned. In IIMs, even the difference of one mark is enough to alter one’s status. And here it’s a question of 12 marks,” the students said.
The IIM committee is to submit its report in two weeks’ time. Till such time the evaluation of CAT might not take place. Both Bajpai and Sawrabh, said that they had contacted their lawyers on how to go about seeking a legal intervention on the retest issue. Of the total 12 marks, errors in 444 series of CAT papers resulted in candidates losing about 8 marks.
According to the information posted by CAT candidates on various blogs, those who took the CAT from question paper of 444 series comprised 25 per cent of the total 1.91 lakh examinees.
Options before the CAT committee
THE IIMs may come out with the following remedies.
A — Ignore evaluation of all questions with errors. B — Award 4 marks to any candidate who has attempted the three wrong questions. C — Devise a method to award marks as per the candidate’s overall performance, depending on the candidates’ strike rate or accuracy.
And the last option, D — is going in for a retest.
Though the IIMs have ruled out a retest, however, if responses on the blogs are anything to go by, the retest is “only logical recourse left.” CAT candidates point out that no methodology of awarding marks can compensate for the time lost in trying to attempt the questions with errors. Secondly, considering that at least 50% of the candidates admitted to the IIMs have performed well in one or two sections and scraped past the cut-off in the third section. Thus, candidates say, general award of marks will result in an error ‘swing’ of at least 15% in the overall marks. That is because minimum + or 4 marks swing in each sec (amounting to + 8 marks) out of the total cut-off of about 60 marks.
This would result in at least 15% students (out of the 50% who scrape cut-off) either making it to the IIMs or not. Out of 1,200 seats, 50% is 600. Fifteen per cent of 600 is 90. Thus, at least 90 students admitted will be not entirely by merit. “That would mean the whole exercise of considering CAT score, Gd PI performance, educational background and work-experience will become an exercise in futility,” candidates claimed.
