While the CAT exam has been going on for the last few years with very
few and minor glitches, there seems to be a problem area this year, in
CAT16 conducted today. It appears that someone managed to transmit at
least some of the questions from a CAT centre in the afternoon slot,
while the exam was still going on.
Screenshots of the exam screen from an alleged post on a social
site/forum have been making rounds on Whatsapp/Facebook from around 3.00
pm. Test-takers who took the CAT in the afternoon slot confirmed that
the questions appearing in the screenshots were indeed there in the test
that they appeared for. For good measure, those questions were shown to
students who took the test in the first slot and they confirmed that
those questions were not a part of the paper in the first slot.
The only time the CAT paper leaked was during CAT2003. After that
instance of paper-leak in 2003, there has been no instance of a paper
leak in the CAT conducted by the IIMs. In fact, after the CAT became an
online/computer-based test, the IIMs have put in stringent conditions in
place preventing students from disclosing the questions even after the
completion of the test – and it has worked fairly well.
Now, this leak, if it were one, has two possibilities. The first is that
a test-taker transmitted some of the questions outside the exam hall
just to show his/her abilities to beat the system. The second is that a
student sent these questions out to some contact of his/her with an
objective of getting answers to the questions that he/she wanted to
answer. Of course, the answers could come into the exam hall through the
same route that the questions went out.
Students are obviously concerned about this leak and how it will affect
their selection chances. The IIMs will need to investigate what exactly
happened – they should do it on topmost priority. This is required for
calming the students' anxiety and to assure them that the sanctity of
the test has not been compromised or if it has been necessary action
will be taken. Based on the findings, they should decide on the course
of action.
If the IIMs find that the leak is a very localised one, they may not
take a drastic action like cancellation of the entire exam. If they
cancel the entire exam or the afternoon slot, it is likely to put
thousands of students to major inconvenience. But, of course, the IIMs
have the responsibility of upholding the sanctity of the test and
ensuring that the students don’t lose out because of any malpractice
indulged in by a few test-takers.
While we understand the frustration that test takers, especially those
in the 2nd slot, may be feeling, we would like to highlight that the
IIMs have been known to act very swiftly and responsibly in the past and
there is every reason to believe that they would do so this time also.
So, keep calm and wait for the IIMs to announce their official stance on this.