G.C.E.T.

The Gujarat Common Entrance Test (for MBA/MCA) is now online. And most test preparation institutes are cashing in on this. Flashy ads claiming their latest up-to-date computer labs which will help students gain that extra edge, tons and tons of mock/simulated 'online' test papers and what not!

Having cracked GCET '06 (in its pencil-and-paper avatar), I decided to attempt the first version of GCET-Online to get a feel of how different it is from the time that I attempted it. (Being a GCET Coach myself, it becomes all the more necessary for me to know from the test taker's perspective.)

Myths vs. Reality Check

1. The online test requires computer proficiency. A person who has had no 'computer experience' whatsoever is at a disadvantage.

Reality: What poppycock! The computerized version of the paper is no different from the pen-and-paper test. The only difference is you read the question with your neck straight instead of bent down and you mark on the screen instead of with a pencil on an OMR sheet. Infact, as you have to just click the right option, the problem of wrongly marking the sheet is eliminated!

2. You have to be good at oral calculations.

Reality: Yes, you have to be good at calculating things in your mind. But isn't that true for even the pencil-and-paper version? And GTU provides an endless supply of rough sheets for calculations at the test centre even for the online version. So if you cannot give up your habit of scribbling things, there is not much of a difficulty there, is it?

3. The online version is tougher than the other...

Reality: Yeah, right! The online version (my set) had no questions on data interpretation. There were no table based puzzles. The english questions (apart from the reading comprehension passage) were itsy bitsy one liners that a reasonable competent 10th grader could've attempted. Contrary to what I read in the newspapers, the GK questions were pretty straight forward and the mode of exam had no impact on them.

4. Only one question appears on the screen at a time...

Reality: Yes... but all the question numbers were present and you could switch back and forth at any point of time. You could distinctly mark the questions which were to be rechecked by you. And the color coding to mark the questions was awesome... something that was not possible in a pencil-and-paper test. And honestly, even if you could view only one question on the screen, did the pencil-and-paper question let you process more than question simultaneouly? Wasn't the student attempting only ONE question at a time there too?

All said and done, there was not much of a difference between the two versions of the paper. In fact, the online version had a lot of advantages. What really matters is that the student is pretty well prepared with his fundamentals. Do not stick to one question if it consumes too much of time. Just mark the same and move ahead!

A good strategy would help anyone score reasonably well in the test.

UPDATE: Day 1 topper
UPDATE: Overall Rank 2 (2009)
UPDATE: Rank 1 in 2006