The chatter has dimmed and the mouse clicks turned silent. The hubbub outside the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2011 centres of the last month will make a comeback only after an entire year. As CAT applicants wait for the next big touchstone the results PaGaLGuY catches up with the person who made it happen — rather smoothly too — CAT Convenor 2011 Prof Janakiraman Moorthy of the India Institute of Management (IIM), Calcutta.
Now that the CAT 2011 test days have ended, what is the first thing that you will do?
I think I will sleep for a whole day, have not had much sleep in the last few months.
So has CAT 2011 robbed you of your sleep?
Not in that sense. But yes, a lot of work has gone in to keep CAT 2011 glitch-free.
But it was not glitch-free…
There were no glitches in the sense that people did not lose time over technical issues. Additional time was given to those whose terminals faced issues. No one really suffered because of any problem.
Would you say that because of this years changes in the CAT pattern, the incoming batches at the IIMs would have different kind of students?
There has been no forced move to get in a different set of people. Those who manage 99.5 or 99.6 percentiles will continue to do so. Its simple, the IIMs want students who do well in Quant as well as Verbal. A good balance of the two makes for a student that all b-schools want. Some IIMs have chosen to adopt different criteria but at IIM Caclutta we will not do anything different than the stipulated process.
The buzz has been that the CAT question papers were relatively easy. Was that a deliberate move?
No, the level of difficulty was the same as previous years. But people were more prepared for the changes that we had announced, so maybe the papers seemed easy. The sections were fewer and since there were rules such as those limiting sectional time, may be candidates found it easier to handle the paper.
CAT-takers seem settled with the two-section paper and time limits this year…
Yes, you tell me what the feedback is. I suppose it went well because as I said earlier, it was all explained much in advance so people had the time to prepare accordingly. We had tried this time-restriction thing back in the paper-pencil days but it did not yield good results. There were too many problems about some candidates trying to re-open the previous section’s question paper after the time ended while some tried to look into the neighbours papers. If the proctor tried to reason with one candidate, the candidates in the vicinity would also get disturbed. With the computer-based paper, we didnt have to bother about those issues so it went smoothly.
Was there any philosophy that went behind formulating this years questions? Were the questions more conceptual?
No change. The philosophy has been the same as previous years. Yes, there was a higher stress on conceptual understanding and it was intentional but the difficulty level was the same.
Does that mean that time-management was intentionally reduced in importance?
No, I will not agree to that. In fact, time management has become even trickier. There are two time-slots to work with compared to earlier when only a broad time duration had to be kept in mind.
Is it true that this year, there were differences in question papers in the same slot too?
Yes, may be in very few cases it may have happened. Because of the equation chunks, there can be differences in one or two percent of the entire test. We keep checking how people are performing in certain types of questions and after studying these reactions, we may change some questions to keep the difficulty levels intact.
Did you receive any complaints about contravention of the Non-Disclosure Agreement or about coaching institute officials taking the test only to reveal questions within a coaching class?
No, we received no complaints whatsoever. But I guess that is because the NDA was religiously followed.
Did you not have to deal with questions surrounding normalisation or wrong questions?
No, not this year. Guess candidates seem to have understood the normalisation process more this year than last. It is no mystery, it is a science on how the scoring is done. Questions are checked for their difficulty levels across the line, and after making a note on the answers, scores are attached. Worldwide this is the process used in online tests, be it GMAT or GRE. With regards to wrong questions, if complaints have been made, they will be looked into.
(Check Pearson’s view on normalisation, which says that majority verdict counts in the outcome.)
What would you say you have personally added to CAT 2011?
I dont think there is anything that I have added as a person to the test. It has been a team effort. All I can say is that since instructions were given so much in advance about pattern changes and other things, it was smooth. Thanks to the committee that worked with me, everything went well.
What happens to Everonn now?
Like I told your website earlier, we are going to thoroughly investigate this and if guilty, we will part way with the company. We are very serious about this issue.
What are the changes that we will see in CAT 2012? Will a CAT company be formed, will CAT be delivered round-the-year? Also will CAT go to Sri Lanka, the Middle East and some other international locations as was announced last year?
Yes, now that we have stabilised this year, there would be new introductions. Changes can be brought about only when the first level plans settle down. We have discussed certain plans, many of which you have pointed out and we will be go ahead with some of them next year. The first year of computer-based CAT had problems so we had to make sure that the following years were okay. Since last year and this year the CAT has been smooth, we can plan ahead. There are other minor changes that will be brought about too. Every year of conducting the exam gives us a feedback on whether things need to be different.
What message would you give to the Convenor of CAT 2012?
It has been teamwork for me so I don’t think I am important enough to give advice on my own. My committee and directors have been greatly supportive. I could approach them at any time with any problems and that helped me do my job well.