‘Online CAT will be more secure this yr’

Mumbai: It’s hard to pull a Munnabhai on the IIMs this year. Stringent security measures have been put in place in order to prevent proxy candidates from taking the Common Admission Test (CAT). Incidentally, last year when some aspiring managers sent in proxies to take the CAT, they were caught as soon as they reached the gates of the IIMs and promptly shown the door.  While last year itself, candidates were put through a round of biometric tests which included fingerprinting, this time Prometric, the company that is conducting the computer-based CAT, says it has included some additional security measures.   “At the final stages of selection, after candidates have finished with the group discussion and personal interview, we match their fingerprints with the ones taken at the time of the CAT. So it’s easy to catch the proxies,’’ said Soumitra Roy, managing director, Prometric India. The software was riddled with viruses last year, which, Prometric said, was because some institutions which served as CAT centres did not have updated anti-virus software. This year, Prometric has reduced the number of CAT centres from 104 to 78, and the number of computers from 17,000 to 9,000. This has been offset by increasing the testing window period, over which CAT is being conducted, from 10 to 20 days.   However, Roy said, it is impossible to eliminate glitches while working on a massive system with “so many movable parts’’.  “There is every chance that a candidate will be affected, but every registered student will be tested within the testing window of 20 days,’’ he said. Like last year, if glitches crop up on a particular computer, the candidate will be assigned another at the same centre. If this is not possible, the candidate will be tested on another day. What’s New   A guide to online CAT will be put up on You Tube       To quit the test, you will have to click on the Review button, and then exit the test by clicking on Quit Test. Unlike last year, the Quit Test button is not there on every page       When you click the Quit Test button, a message pops up telling you if you have unanswered questions. You can choose to go back to the questions and answer them, or end the test       A month before CAT, the test website will host a practice test as well as a tutorial       Candidates will be allowed 15 minutes to go through the tutorial before attempting CAT