CAT 2013 results proved to be a shocker for a large number of aspirants. Just as the lucky ones were delighted seeing those magical ’99.xx’ numbers on their screens, many simply couldn’t believe the percentiles that they had received.

Reason: Not just one, but hundreds of aspirants who had scored in higher 90s in QA sections had received abysmally low scores (from 20.xx to 60.xx) in their VA section. One might say that these might be the aspirants who couldn’t handle the pressure on the D-Day as far as section 2 is concerned and hence fumbled.

However, something just doesn’t seem right when these are the very aspirants who have consistently scored in higher 90s in their mocks and have also performed very well in IIFT, SNAP and other tests.

I personally know cases where people have scored 99.xx in Quant and 58.xx in Verbal. I for one, who had scored 99.25 in VA ( CAT 2012) have been doled out 68.xx in VA (CAT 2013).

A pattern indeed seems to be emerging in the discrepancies that have been observed. Many aspirants have raised their voices, have started online campaigns to highlight the issues to the authorities. A formal petition has also been launched. However, only time will tell whether these efforts yield any result or not.

CAT was always a tad bit more unpredictable after the introduction of normalization. But such incidents certainly dent the credibility of CAT which was once regarded an exam which provided a level playing field for everyone to compete.Chances are that all the petitions and protests will all go in vain. Fair or unfair, the top B-schools are nevertheless getting 3000 odd people to shortlist. Why should anyone bother? It might certainly be that everything is perfectly fine with the normalization process (despite evidence being contrary to this) and all the protests are all cries of disappointment.

Nevertheless, one thing is certain and you might as well get this confirmed from anyone in the CAT training industry; CAT – Thou have lost credibility!