If you are a CAT-09 aspirant, this must be a tough time for you even if you are lucky enough not to have been at a centre where the test never took off or luckier still not to have been a victim of an isolated case of system mis-behaviour which might have caused you to submit the test without having completed it or something similarly disastrous. The anxiety of whether you would be able to attempt the test would have overtaken the usual, and understandable, anxiety of whether you will be able to perform to the best of your ability.

But then, things could always have been worse – imagine a situation where almost everyone else was able to attempt the test in the normally expected glitch-free mode and you were among a small minority left out. There would have been no one to take up your cause, or understand and empathize with you and the general perception would have been that you were trying to blame your poor performance on a system otherwise functioning beautifully. The media would have heaped praise on the IIMs and Prometric for the gigantic transition and your plight would have gone unnoticed.

So, first things first, you must stop worrying about whether you will be able to attempt the test or not. Statistically, the chances are that you will have a relatively normal experience. You should not even be thinking in any other way because that will take away your focus from doing well in the exam if it does happen normally.

Even if, God forbid, it does not pan out normally for you, for the first time in your life you can be sure there is a certain “safety in numbers” in this case. With so many test takers at the receiving end of a mis-managed endeavour, your chances of being heard and your complaints getting redressed shortly are significantly higher even if things do go wrong for you.

For those of you who could not take the test in the initially designated slot, again, there is no reason for you to believe that all your preparation would evaporate over the next few days and amount to nothing. Think of the cancelled slot as a cancelled mock test/AIRCAT, where you atleast you got within sniffing distance of the actual CAT. Would you have really worried as much had a mock CAT slot been cancelled? Surely not. And probability wise it is quite likely that with increased time and more knowledge about the new format, you will be able to do even better in the second shot you will shortly get, if the reports from Prometric and IIMs are to be believed.

So, summarily, stop fretting about what is not within your control and take control of all that you can. Test starting late, server crashing, password not functioning, system misbehaviour and anything remotely similar – none of these things are under YOUR control; hence, there is no point in even thinking about them. What is in your control is giving your best whenever the external factors behave properly. For that, you will need to stay in a relaxed and happy frame of mind. That alone will give you an insurmountable advantage over others in an exam where performance is finally measured in relative terms.

If you can see the troubled landscape of CAT-2009 as an opportunity for yourself, you are on your way to becoming a successful manager.

- Deekshant Sahrawat