Ahmedabad:
As the Common Admission Test or CAT went online for the first time on Saturday, servers crashed across the country at several centres.
Hundreds of students in Chennai, Bangalore, Lucknow and Chandigarh have not been able to take their exams and there is uncertainty as to when they will be able to sit for them again.
The computerised test is spread over 10 days, from November 28-December 7 for entrance into the prestigious Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs).
The IIMs for the first time have entrusted the task of conducting the CAT to Prometric, an American firm, which is organising the computer-based test.
As soon as the problem was reported, the CAT organisers said that the students unable to appear will be accommodated and will be given a new date.
New date for exams will be announced soon and we will ensure such problems do not occur in future, the Convener of the CAT exam said.
Union HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, too, said that there is no need for rescheduling the exam and students hit by the server crash can appear in the next nine days.
A meeting between the CAT organisers and Prometric officials is scheduled for later on Saturday in Ahmedabad or Kolkata to discuss the problem.
The CAT has traditionally been a paper-pencil test, which required about three-and-half hours to administer.
As students prepared to take the online Common Admission Test, some of them were not quite convinced about the new format of the examination.
"We will face severe difficulties in going through the tables, the mathematics portion and even going through the charts on the question paper in cyber space. Had it been a paper-pen test, we could have gone through it in comfort and could have responded to the questions faster than an online test," said Rahul Jain, a CAT aspirant, ahead of the test.
This year, the number of candidates has dipped 12 per cent compared to last year. Experts blame it on the changed test format.
"The online test is definitely not favourable for millions of talented students who come from smaller towns and villages as most of them do not have the capacity to afford regular mock tests online and that is why there is drop in number of students," Dr Amit Agrawal, a CAT expert.
While IIMs claim that online CAT means a huge savings of their monetary resources in addition to stop wastage of manpower for holding the examination in convention mode, CAT aspirants don't seem convinced and happy with the logic.