Candidates scheduled to appear for the Common Admission Test (CAT) at Asia Pacific Institute of Management in New Delhi today faced technical snags and had to spend almost eleven hours at the centre, while some had to travel all the way to the Gurgaon test centre to appear for their test.

Elaborating on her experience, one test taker from the morning slot said she reached the centre at 8:30 AM. Although all students were allowed inside the waiting area of the institute, around 40 students who were booked to appear for their exam in labs L1 and EB were only allowed inside the labs by 10:00 AM. Once inside, all other candidates except this group were allowed to start their exam. After waiting for more than an hour, the forty-odd students were again led to the waiting area, where they were served lunch.

Questioned about the reason behind the delay, Prometric authorities at the centre blamed a short circuit in the servers as the major cause. “Insisting that they are in conversation with senior officials from Prometric about how to solve the issue best, they asked us to be patient,” the candidate said. Finally, the candidates were allowed in the labs at 3:00 PM. Students began their test scheduled for 10:00 AM at 3:30 PM. Having reached the centre at 8:30 AM, this candidate finally reached home at 7:15 PM.

While the morning slot people had an agonizing wait, those scheduled for the afternoon slot had to travel to another centre altogether. One of the candidates in the afternoon slot said that he reached the centre at 12:30 PM. There were no clear instructions from people standing at the entrance and the candidates were asked to wait. Around 2:00 PM, the authorities communicated that there were some technical snags and travel arrangements were being made to take the candidates to the test centre in Gurgaon.

He added that only a few students who were booked to appear for their exam in two of the labs were not allowed inside. This led to confusion and unrest amongst the parents and students who were not allowed in the centre. In the meanwhile, the Prometric authorities arranged a bus to take half the batch of students to the Gurgaon test centre while the other half were asked to wait. “We were told that they are fixing the technical snags and we would be able to start our exam soon,” the candidate said.

After a fruitless wait, the Prometric authorities finally arranged a bus to take this group of students to the Gurgaon centre as well. Having reached the centre at around 5:15 PM, the students began their test between 5:30 PM and 5:45 PM.