Common Admissions Test (CAT) 2009 will be a computer based test (CBT). Just like GRE,GMAT and TOEFL. It creates a serious problem for students from backgrounds like my own. They have barely used computers. They are not used to reading long passages on a screen and have hardly touched a keyboard. CAT already has a language barrier. Now we are erecting a digital barrier on top of it.
CAT and many other management entrance tests have a very difficult section on English that carries almost equal weight as sections on quantitative aptitude and analytical reasoning. I don’t know why the section on English needs to be so difficult? I have known so many friends who were good students capable of becoming excellent managers, but never dared take CAT because English was impossible for them. Schooled in Hindi medium, and not exposed to reading English novels from their childhood; they found negotiating the comprehension section of CAT (and FMS and many others) impossible. Many of them could read, write and speak grmmatically correct English and were even fluent in it. But the level of English proficiency needed for clearing CAT exams is of a whole different level. I could never understand why the language section in MBA examinations should be so difficult? Do managers in real life–even the best of them–need to be so proficient in English? We are talking of proficiency levels that is too much even for the PhD students in Enlgish speaking countries. Test of English in GRE, or even GMAT, is much easier.
I am not saying that MBA candidates should not be tested on English. English is the language of business in India today and will remain so. Any aspiring manager should be fluent in the language. But does she or he need to be as good as the CAT examination requires him to be? It clearly creates a disadvantageous situation for all students from non-English speaking backgrounds. This kind of divide is there in other entrance examinations too, but it is worse in MBA entrance tests.
I am afraid the computer based test will make it even more difficult for students from small towns and villages. From a small town myself, I used a computer only after joining IRMA. That was a decade ago. But where I come from, there are many like me even today. Cyber cafes have become popular and chatting is a rage. But taking a Computer based test requires a whole different level of comfort with computers. I know how nervous I was before taking GRE even when I had been spending 10 hours every day on computer for 3 years before I took the test.
CBT will make preparing for CAT even more expensive and will make IIMs more elitist than they already are. Many students of my kind of backgrounds will be discouraged from taking the test.
Expensive application form (Rs. 1400 in 2009), a very difficult test of English, and now computer based tests: the recipe is complete for scaring away poor students from ordinary backgrounds, even if they are meritorious. I strongly resent the elitism inherent in the new test design.
