Good turnout on day 1 of CMAT
Garima Upadhyay Rawat
The first round of CMAT saw a good turnout from test takers. The first slot was in the morning (9:30am – 12:30pm) and the second slot was in the evening (2:30pm – 5:30pm).
“We had scheduled 10.6% of the total registered candidates in the first slot and another 8.6% in the evening slot. The attendance in the morning slot was 88% plus. The attendance in the evening slot is yet to come. Mumbai recorded the maximum representation in the morning slot,” informs Shrutidhar Paliwal, vice-president and corporate communications head, Aptech that conducted the test in a second row.
"60,000 students are taking the test in the five-day window that started from today and goes on till October 1, 2012. I have personally visited some centres and no issues have been reported so far from any centres on students experiencing glitches in the test-taking process," added Paliwal.
Since CMAT will be conducted twice in a year, students have the freedom and the choice to choose the better score out of the two. Explaining the need to hold the exam twice AICTE chairman SS Mantha says, “If a certain student falls sick on the day of the exam, at least s/he doesn’t have to lose a year in the process. And the other is the fact that the students can choose their best score in the two exams to apply to institutes, which also makes it a win-win situation for them.”
CMAT was first conducted in February this year, and around 70,000 students from across the country had registered for the test. This year the test is being conducted in 67 centres countrywide in as many as 64 cities.
