This year, the Common Admissions Test (CAT) will begin in October, a month earlier than the usual November-end. How does an early CAT 2010 affect your preparation? Here are the top 5 repercussions and predictions.

1. Lesser prep time – Preparation time has been reduced by a whole month. Which means that you will have to advance your ‘final push’ by about 30 days and concentrate more on studies now. Coaching institutes will hasten to finish their theory classes and move to a full-test practice schedule sooner. If you are juggling your CAT preparation with a fulltime job, you should be doing now what you otherwise would have done after one month.

From another point of view, the ‘preponing of 30 days’ is more psychological than real. According to ARKS Srinivas, Director of T.I.M.E. Kolkata, “On the face of it, the exam seems like it has been preponed, but you could also be taking the test after November 15, in which case your preparation schedule would be the same as in previous years.”

“With the CAT being conducted earlier, the only change in the preparation plan should be to probably take fewer simulated tests but ensure that the self-analysis between two tests is rigorous enough to help you peak at the right time before the CAT,” says Vinayak Kudwa, Head of Products at IMS Learning Resources.

There is a high chance that when it comes to selecting a testing slot during CAT 2010 registration, a large number of applicants will try to book a slot closer to November 23 than to October 27. However, since the slots will have limited seats, there will be a rush to get the later slots and only a few lucky/early ones will get them. Late registrants will have to accept a slot closer to October 27. It would help to keep this in mind when planning your preparation.

2. Could be an easier paper – According to ARKS Srinivas, “The plan for CAT 2010 will require Prometric and the IIMs to create 40 tests with a total of 2,400 questions, assuming 60 questions per paper as last year. Creating 2,400 questions of high difficulty is a humongous task and I don’t think that the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) faculty is going to create them because they outsourced the CAT to Prometric to free-up faculty time in the first place. Professors at IIMs and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) already tend to have their hands full with consultancy projects and at most they may be involved in approving questions but not creating them. Which means that the questions would largely be prepared by Prometric who in my opinion don’t have the wherewithal to create 2,400 high-difficulty questions. So they will end up making an easier paper with replicated questions which will be more formula-based than logic-based.”

Prometric, has however said earlier that they “work closely with IIM professors along with specially trained subject matter experts from other well-regarded Indian universities (for question creation). Each exam question is written, edited and reviewed in an iterative process. All modifications and approvals are tracked electronically in an audit trail.”

Mr Srinivas implies that although this might be the stated process, it does not seem like it is practicably followable. Mind you, this is just his personal view and a speculative prediction, though an interesting one to ponder upon.

3. More frequent mock CATs – While coaching institutes will not reduce the number of mock CATs, they would have to alter the schedule.

“The number of AIMCATs given will not change. But instead of one exam per week, we might make the students take it every 5 or 6 days,” says ARKS Srinivas of T.I.M.E..

“The IMS SimCATs will proceed as per schedule, except for the two SimCATs scheduled in November which we will give to students in some other format such as an online test,” IMS Products Head Vinayak Kudwa told PaGaLGuY.

With lesser time on their hands, one might see more working professionals sign-up for websites that offer online tests anytime and any place at one’s convenience rather than use coaching institute mock CATs which are held on scheduled dates.

4. Shorter window to buy other b-school forms – Business schools accepting CAT scores such as MDI Gurgaon or IMT Ghaziabad traditionally end their form sales about a week before the CAT exam date. This helps them sell more forms, even to candidates who otherwise might not buy them after experiencing a bad performance during the CAT. In previous years, these institutes have closed their form sales around November 20.

With the CAT 2010 starting on October 27, these b-schools will now have to stop selling forms in October itself.

5. More prep time for other entrance exams – Those appearing for CAT 2010 in the earlier slots will have a month or even more to prepare for the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) entrance test, Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP) and Joint Management Entrance Test (JMET), the latter two of which usually take place in December. The most benefited ones will be those who have not had a satisfactory performance in the CAT and are setting their hopes on the next set of exams in line.