Students can now look beyond social networking sites and prepare for examinations on the go, on their cellphones.

BlackBerry has introduced an application, Study Buddy, in a gaming format with content from IMS, a management coaching institute. With the application, students would be able to prepare for competitive examinations like CAT and MAT. They will have to answer questions after each levels. Students can download the application for free.

Telecommunication company Research in Motion (RIM) that manufactures BlackBerry smartphones and IMS will launch Study Buddy at an inter-college competition to start from next month.

At the event — Aptitude Competition for Excellence — students can take tests on BlackBerry smartphones provided to them on the campus. This 45-day competition, to be conducted in more than 16 cities, will select three best students from each. It will be conducted in October and November at 10 colleges in Bihar.

The competition will target economically weaker students and participants would be invited to the IMS centre from the districts. The final examination will be held in New Delhi next January and the top three students would be given scholarships of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000, respectively.

Hitesh Shah, India director, RIM, said: “ The new application will help students work on their skills.”

Pallavi, a student at IMS, Patna, said: “This is a good move. Now we will have something new to spend our time on, apart from Facebook. The application will increase our question solving abilities, accuracy and time.”