Nov. 30: Experts have debunked the CAT organisers’ argument that the testing system could not have been tried out on the scale experienced on an examination day.

“It isn’t such a big deal to check the software on a large scale. They could have gone to random colleges or schools and gotten students to test it out,” said Dheeraj Sanghi, a computer network security specialist.

The IIMs are providing the questions and have outsourced the testing to Prometric. Prometric has tied up with private IT teaching firm NIIT to help provide infrastructure for the examination. Private colleges have been hired to provide the centres.

“In such a scenario, it is extremely hard to ensure uniformity of technical standards across centres,” Sanghi said.

Two veteran IIM faculty members expressed concern that the rigour usually involved in conducting the test may have been missing this time.

Till last year, individual faculty members would be sent to each examination centre to help tackle any unforeseen problem.

This time, however, the IIMs have left the conduct of the test entirely to Prometric.

IIM promise

IIM Ahmedabad today said “every single” affected CAT candidate would be accommodated in retests.

The institute’s director, Samir Barua, said the test would be rescheduled according to the convenience of the students within the 10-day window till December 7. If needed, the window could be extended by a few days, he said.

Around 70,000 students had appeared for CAT in the first three days, out of which 10-11 per cent (7,000-7,700) were not able to take the test, Barua said.