CAT 2017: Nearly 2.31 lakh candidates register entrance test

Nearly 2.31 lakh candidates have registered for India’s biggest MBA entrance test, the Common Admission Test to be conducted by the Indian Institute of Management Lucknow (IIM-L) on November 26. The last date for submission of form was Monday (September 25).

“The exact number of applicants will be known on Tuesday. There is not significant change in the number of applicants as compared to what it was last year,” said Prof Neeraj Dwivedi of IIM(L), the convener of the examination to be conducted on November 26 this year.

Registrations for the Common Admission Test (CAT) to IIMs and other leading B-schools declined a bit this year. It had shot up to a seven-year high in 2016, with 2,32,434 candidates applying for the entrance test to IIMs and other prominent B-schools.

While male candidates comprised majority (67%) in 2016, the percentage of female candidates had marginally increased by 1% compared to CAT 2015.

IIM-L had extended the last date to register for the entrance test from September 20 to 25 “to accommodate more candidates”. During these five days some 20,000 candidates had applied, said Prof Dwivedi.

The candidates will be permitted to download their admit card from October 18 till the test date. Dwivedi said a tutorial to understand the format of the test will be available on the CAT website from October 18. Candidates may work on the tutorials well in advance, he added.

CAT scores are accepted by the 20 IIMs and more than 100 business schools across the country. Around 4000 seats are offered through IIMs.

The test which will be in two sessions for 180 minutes will have three sections. Section I will have verbal ability and reading comprehension; section II data interpretation and logical reasoning and section III will deal with quantitative ability, Dwivedi said.

Some questions in each section may not be of multiple choice type and candidates will have to type direct answers online instead. The tutorials will explain this.

“We will also allow the use of the basic onscreen calculator for computation. Candidates will be allotted exactly 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and they cannot switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section,” Dwivedi said.

CAT 2017 will be conducted in test centres spread across approximately 140 test cities. Candidates will be given the option to select four test cities in order of preference.

Test cities and centres will be assigned to the candidates only after the last date for CAT 2017 registration and hence candidates do not have to rush to block slots and cities in the initial days of registration.