The CAT effect: CATE to go online only partially

Delhi University's combined aptitude test for Eng (Hons) will have a written subjective test; plans to go fully online have been put on hold

Delhi University's combined aptitude test for Eng (Hons) will have a written subjective test; plans to go fully online have been put on hold

The CAT came out of the bag and has been put in it again.

Thinking out of the box and going online proved a very bad experience for the organizers of the most prestigious and seemingly difficult entrance exam in the country.

Ready for the long haul: CAT aspirants queue to enter an exam centre in New Delhi. Thousands of students were harassed, as servers hosting the online exam crashed in November last year

Now, the Delhi University doesn't want to repeat the 'mistake' and therefore, has put the plans to go online with the Combined Aptitude Test for English on the backburner.

The test was planned as a unified entrance exam for admission to English (Hons) course in various colleges affiliated to Delhi University. The test was proposed to be taken online but now, having the CAT fiasco at the back of their minds, the varsity administration is giving it a second thought.

A K Bakshi, director of the Institute of Life Long Learning (ILLL), who was given the responsibility to conduct the objective part of the exam, said: "Earlier we were planning to make CATE a computer-based test. For this purpose, we recently made various presentations to the English department and the university Vice-Chancellor."

However, following the recent CAT fiasco, in which the system at many test centers crashed because of major technical glitches, a section of the faculty expressed their desire to retain the written format for at least the subjective part of the exam.

They did not rubbish the proposal altogether though but pointed out that the objective part of the exam can still be taken online.

"The department raised the point that the online format is suitable for objective questions. But in subjects like English, students are judged on the basis of their analytical ability, creativity and writing skills etc. For that matter, it is not logical to completely do away with the written exam," said Bakshi.

The English department head Professor Sumanyu Satpathy has written to all his counterparts in various colleges to sit again over the issue and finalise the details.
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"The need of the hour is to reach a conclusion. The sooner we take a decision it will prove better for the smooth delivery of online exam. The faculty will get enough time to compile objective questions for the test.

Probably, by mid-January the university will come up with a detailed final plan," said Bakshi.

46
Number of DU colleges running Eng (Hons) course

350
Number of seats covered in CATE 2009

1,500
Number of seats expected to be covered in CATE 2010

37
Number of colleges expected to be covered in CATE 2010

Who will bell the CAT

During the 2009 CAT examination, held online for the first time, in November hundreds of aspiring candidates reported system glitches and were unable to take the test. The reasons attributed for failure were server collapse; log in problems and other technical snags at 11 centres in cities like Delhi, Bhopal, Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, Bangalore etc. Many students were either refused entry or the test was delayed creating widespread confusion and chaos. The US firm, Prometric, which was entrusted to conduct the CAT tests for admission to IIM's and other prestigious Management institutes also failed to give a satisfactory answer to the candidates and were advised to contact the call centre for assistance and grievance redressal.

CATE 2010:u00a0 more colleges, more seats

Buoyed by the success of CATE in 2009, the organisers plan to make it more comprehensive this year. In the first stage, 12 colleges, including Hindu, Indraprastha and Kamala Nehru, adopted the exam pattern to admit students to English (Hons) course covering 350 seats. While 7,000 applications were received, 6,000 students appeared for the test. Delhi University's English department is expecting an addition of over 1,200 more seats, taking the total number of seats through CATE to over 1,500. Around 25 colleges, including Lady Sri Ram College, Miranda House, Daulat Ram and Gargi, have expressed their interests to adopt the exam pattern this year. One issue that needs to be resolved is the filling up of the seats. During the 2009-10 admissions, Hindu, IP and Kamla Nehru filled up 90 per cent seats in the first-cut off itself. But CATE colleges had problem filling up their seats as they were accepting only CATE-qualified students.