The notification and dates of the Common Management Admissions Test (CMAT), the new MBA entrance exam launched by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE’s) are finally public. There are nearly two months to go for the exam, which will be conducted from February 20 to 28, 2012 in two shifts across 61 cities as a computer-based test.

A notification released by the AICTE on Sunday stated that the AICTE’s first national level online test for management students will be open for registration for a month-long period starting from December 9, 2011 to January 9, 2012. The test will cost Rs 1,200 for General/OBC candidates and Rs 600 for SC/ST/PD candidates. There will be additional bank charges, whether you are buying the form from State Bank of Indian branches or making an online payment.

A three-hour test, AICTE says that CMAT scores will help applicants seek admissions across all management programmes at AICTE-approved Institutions, amounting to about 4 lakh MBA seats on paper.

The test will comprise four sections — Quantitative Techniques and Data Interpretation, Logical Reasoning, Language Comprehension and General Awareness. Each section will have 25 questions and weigh 100 marks — that’s 4 marks per question. There will be negative marking of one mark for each wrong answer.

We are expecting about 2.5 lakh candidates to register for the test. Our co-ordinating team has made special provisions to see that technical infrastructure is in place in all the CMAT test centers across 61 cities, Dr SS Mantha, AICTE Chairman told PaGaLGuY.

It is the first time that AICTE is undertaking an entrance test of this scale. The entrance exam came out of an interim Supreme Court decision in which it asked AICTE in July 2011 to not meddle in affiliated b-schools’ admission process for the current admission year, and start its own test if it did not believe in the existing ones.

Aptech will execute the computer-based test on the behalf of AICTE after landing the contract post the tender process.

A CMAT helpline number will be effective from December 9 and candidates can start taking test trials from December 12 onwards. More on the CMAT website (peppered with stock photos of foreigners. Could they not get some Indian people for the pictures?): http://www.aicte-cmat.in/” target=”_blank”>www.aicte-cmat.in

CMAT pattern