New Delhi

2.5 lakh to take CAT exam today

NEW DELHI: Over 2.5 lakh candidates will be appearing for the Common Admission Test (CAT) for admission to IIMs being held this Sunday at 23 centres across the country.

A total of 268,202 students will take the exam, with as many as 41,764 applicants from Delhi alone, followed by 26,490 from Bangalore.

“Last year, 241,500 candidates sat for the CAT. The number of candidates from the Delhi-Lucknow region who wrote the CAT was 52,682, which has risen to 58,327 in 2008,” said Saji Nair from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Prof. Nair, who is a member of the CAT group which is conducting the examination, is managing the Delhi-Lucknow region.

There will be 42 examination centres in Delhi and 17 in Lucknow.

CAT is used as a criterion to shortlist applicants for admission to the seven prestigious Indian Institutes of Management in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Indore, Kolkata, Kozhikode, Lucknow and Shillong. Apart from these, about 120 other B-schools use the CAT score to admit students. The question paper is divided into three components: data interpretation, English skills and quantitative aptitude.

“The number of questions in each section is not fixed and so the number of marks is also not fixed. Since 2006 the exam has been of a duration of two and a half hours. Since it is hard to predict the question paper, students should go with an open mind,” advised Ulhas Viragkar of Triumphant Institute of Management Education (TIME).

The exam will begin at 10-30 a.m. , said Prof. Nair.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu