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CAT 2010 has been better than CAT 2009, is the opinion of many of the test takers across the country. This is not just an opinion, but a fact as well. Till now there has been no reports of any major glitch at any test lab, unlike last year when the first few days of CAT 2009 had given nightmares to the test takers with server crashes and navigation problems. The credit must go to the CAT 2010 Convener Prof. Himanshu Rai of IIM Lucknow for his careful planning and implementation of things with the support of test executing agency Prometric.

Let us have a detailed look at the similarities and differences between CAT 2009, the first computer-based test of CAT, and CAT 2010. This analysis will be of great help to the future CAT test takers, as well as CAT administrators...

The two major differences between the two CAT exams are in the number of test takers and the number of test days in the test window. CAT 2009 was taken by 2,46, 000 candidates, whereas CAT 2010 is being taken by 2, 04, 000 candidates.

But with respect to dip in number of test takers CAT 2009 and CAT 2010 are similar. CAT 2009 had witnessed a dip in number of test takers compared to CAT 2008. In CAT 2010 also there is a dip (of more than 15%) compared to CAT 2009.

CAT 2009 was held in a 10 day window, with an extension of one day and two additional days for retests of few candidates. CAT 2010 on the other hand is being held in a 20 day window from October 27 to November 24, with almost no possibility of any extension or retest as the tests are going smooth.

Another difference between the two exams is the number of IIMs. CAT 2009 test takers competed for the seats in 7 IIMs, but CAT 2010 test takers have greener pastures with 10 IIMs available to them for the competition.

Coming to the pattern of the test, CAT 2010 is same as CAT 2009. Both follow the same pattern of total 60 questions, 20 in each section. There were no surprises in the test. According to Gautam Puri, Vice Chairman, Career Launcher, the paper did not throw up any surprises and all the usual aspects were present in the paper.

Although the pattern has been the same, the difficulty level of the CAT 2010 test paper has been moderate in nature as compared to that of CAT 2009, which was rated as easy to moderate. Some of the sections of CAT 2010, such as DI, Quant, Verbal Ability have been rated trickier and more time consuming than CAT 2009.

Let us now come to the average number of attempts in both the CAT exams. In CAT 2009 the number of attempts was around 40. CAT 2010 too has seen attempts of around 42 to 45. According to Gautam Puri, the CAT 2010 takers who have a good score in the mock tests can easily attempt 42 to 45 questions, and in each section attempts from 12 to 15 will be good for making the cut off.

Source:--mbauniverse