Admission tests for kids are a torture. There are some schools who take written tests to judge a child’s abilities. To prepare for these admission tests, children are sent to pre-schools or Montessori classes. These children who cannot even speak properly are sent to these classes regularly to learn to read and write.

It is a fact that all children are not born with the same intelligence and need special effort for their development. The education system in India lacks this facility. All Montessori houses and pr-schools follow a set pattern for all students and do not spend additional effort in developing retarded kids.

There are certain schools where admission is done on the basis of lottery. This is perhaps the best way of getting admission into a formal school. However with the number of seats being limited the unsuccessful candidates have a harrowing time get admission in a decent school. Some schools also follow the trend of interviewing the parents and the child. In this method admission of candidates can become biased.

The only way of sparing the innocent kids of the torture of admission procedure is to set up more decent schools following the same educational pattern.  There is a distinct demarcation between ‘good schools’ and ‘not so good schools’ which is needed to be removed.

Are you aspiring to bell the CAT (Common Admission Test) this year? Well all the management aspirants have something to cheer about. One of the leading test-prep institutes, Triumphant Institute of Management Education Private Limited (T.I.M.E.) will be conducting AIMCAT (All India Mock CAT).

CAT has decided to go computer based for the current year. In response to it T.I.M.E. has taken the initiative of conducting mock tests. IIM and top B-school students will be taking 32 mock CAT’s including 20 AIMCAT’s (14 tests will be in the CBT format and the rest of it will be in traditional paper and pencil format).

Manek Daruvala, the Director of T.I.M.E. believes that such mock tests will help the students assess their standard. Actually T.I.M.E. wants to achieve the same kind of popularity and success they have with XAT, IIT-JEE, GMAT, GRE and TOEFL.

The students feel that they need more and more exposure to these mock tests to get a better idea because of a change in format. They should be able to familiarize with the new system. But S. Balasubhramaniam confirms that format change might pose challenge but content and difficulty level of the paper will not be changed drastically.

The students taking Common Admission Test (CAT) this year will have to appear for the online test. There is a lot of confusion and anxiety about the format of the exam. The students are anxious about the format of the exam. However, the management teachers claim that there is nothing to panic. The computer based test is the same as the paper based test, only the booklet has been replaced by the computer. The pattern of the exam will be the same as the previous ones. It will not be adaptive test where the initial questions are easier and if the students get it right then they are allowed for the tougher questions. In CAT, the students will be able to view the entire question paper on the computer screen and they can start with any question. The only difference is that instead of marking the answers with a pen, the student will have to key the answers. Adaptive testing is a method in which the computer adapts to the student’s performance as he or she is taking the test.  The students are already taking exams like The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) general test and the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) in this format. The students will have one advantage in online CAT. Earlier the CAT was taken on a single day. Now the students can take test on any day within the 10 day window to write the test.  Earlier the CAT was taken only in the major cities, now it can be conducted even in the small towns.

Delhi University introduces a common test to evaluate the literary aptitude of the students. The common test is called Common Aptitude Test for English (CATE). About 15 colleges affiliated under the Delhi university have agreed to admit students on the basis of CATE. The colleges who are not opting for Common Aptitude Test for English (CATE) will admit the students based on their Plus Two marks.

Common Aptitude Test for English (CATE) will demand more preparation on the students side. However, this test will also ensure that the students opting for English honors really have literary aptitude. The English at the Plus Two level does not give an idea about the content of the English honors. A Plus Two student will have no idea about Twentieth century Indian Writing or Literary theory. Similarly, they will have very limited idea about contemporary literature. An aptitude test like CATE will ensure that the students will be able to perform well if he opts for the subject. CATE will ensure more deserving candidates get chance to opt for the course. This will also raise the bar of the quality of the program.

All India Engineering Entrance Exam(AIEEE) had a change in the marking pattern and grace period. The grace period is alloted to the students to write their personal details such as registration number, roll number on the OMR sheets. This time the OMR sheet was sealed along with the question paper. So the students had to waste some of their time alloted for writing answers, in writing their personal details. Generally the OMR sheets are given out before the question paper and the students are given 15 minutes of time to fill in details. However the paper was easy, so the students are happy. There was a change in the marking pattern. There were fewer questions in maths, physics and chemistry. The number of questions were reduced to 30 from 35 questions. As a result aggregate rose from 315 to 372.

The fact that the questions were relatively easy, seems to have compensated the loss of time. The personals details are very important part of examinations. The students should be given the grace period so that they do not make a crucial mistake while filling such vital details. Those 15 minutes of time also helps the students to calm down so that they can give their best in answering the questions.

Graduate Management Aptitude Test (GMAT) is going to carry 33% more new questions. If you are appearing for GMAT you will have to answer 300 new questions in all the five sections, the highest being in data sufficiency. Thousands of students take GMAT across the globe and this entrance examination is considered in reputed universities like Harvard, Kellog and Wharton. GMAT is applicable to about 1,900 B-schools across the globe including some management schools in India. In India about 20,000 students take the GMAT examination.

According to the new format, there will be more emphasis on pronoun and modifier rules in the sentence correction section. There will be less focus on comparisons and idioms related questions. A balance has been created in the short and the long passages in the reading comprehension section. Two biology passages has been replaced by one business related and a social science passage. The other changes include an increase in the number of inference questions and removal of roman numeral questions. In the critical reasoning section, 50 odd questions are replaced by 50 new ones. The problem solving section will have 19 questions less and the general and specific questions will remain the same. GMAT aims to allot the best of the well rounded students in the B-schools across the world. Believe that you are one of them and work hard.

  The All India Engineering Entrance Examination which is better known as AIEEE is becoming more and more difficult with every passing day and is truly a hard nut to crack. The exam is becoming at par with the IIT-JEE standards as far as the exam patterns are considered. Every year the AIEEE is conducted across 1460 centers in India and millions of students appear for the exam. However the sudden change in the pattern of the examination is striking and people have been taken by surprise. The standard of the examination being somehow at par with the IIT examination standards coupled with the increase of the total number of marks of the exam from 315 to 432 will add to the problem of the students appearing for the examination.

 Again apart from the fact that the question paper became tougher, the set pattern of the questions in each paper also changed. For example students will from now onwards have to answer a total of 30 questions in each subject such as Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics. Out of these 30 questions students had to answer 24 questions which carried 4 marks each and 6 questions which carried eight marks each. Students have expressed grievances against this ever increasing toughness of the question paper of the AIEEE. The result of this is reflected in the lowering of the cut off marks which will take effect from this year onwards. The cut off marks to get admission in any state Engineering college will come down from 160 to 130. I am sure this decision will give somewhat relief to the stressed students which are appearing for the AIEEE.

  We all know the getting in to a B-school is a dream for most of the students these days. Bagging a management degree is a big deal in itself because of fat salary that it follows. But to get into the MBA program is an even bigger deal cause you have to cross the hurdle of the Common Admission Test better known as CAT. Statistics says every year about 10000 students aspire for the MBA degree from any of the top B schools in India but only a few are able to get an entry to the top B schools. As a matter of fact only 3 % succeed to get into the top 25 B schools. Always remember hard work only is not sufficient. You need to be smart in order to crack CAT.

 You can follow certain tips that might prove effective while sitting for CAT. The first thing to keep in mind is skiff the question that needs deriving a formula. You have to practice extensively in order to do all the calculations in your mind rather than using the paper for it. Since time is the main factor in CAT, you should first complete the easy questions and then focus on the questions that need more calculations. Always keep it in mind that you would not get extra marks for solving extra difficult questions.