Free tool to practice for CAT online

While those preparing for the Common Admission Test (CAT) have been getting hundreds of pages of documents on the internet, many of them did not have the opportunity of writing a test online, something they may have to do this time.

This has prompted several online coaching sites to include loads of practice tests for the users. "Preparing for the test is one thing, but writing the test and seeing if the interface works fine is something else," said Kavita Iyer, CEO of Minglebox -the online education portal that has launched their online test engine called ECAT Prep. The test engine, according to the CEO, not only provides instant result for the students, but allows them to benchmark their scores against the top scorers in the site and also helps them analyse the areas where they are falling short. Experts’ help Besides, having eight in-house experts who can help them on overall strategies of cracking the test and provide assistance in specific areas such as quantitative and verbal abilities, the site has also got in touch with top scorers in CAT and other competitive tests like XAT and MAT. This has enabled the students appearing for the tests to interact with them and learn their success formula. "They can access our site for free and probably make use of the refresher materials, which is fairly comprehensive and exhaustive," Kavita Iyer said. Educational portal While the site attracted 1.20 lakh CAT students last year, the figures, according to the company, has already crossed 50,000 since August 12. "This is an indication that students want to get ready for the test quite early on," Kavita said. Formed as a campus social networking platform in 2006, Minglebox has since evolved into an education portal helping students find the right kind of courses that suits their specific requirements. The section for test preparation -which includes all important competitive exams-has been receiving more traffic. The Bangalore-based site, formed by a bunch of IIT/IIM alumni, has been appealing to many students, since many of its services have been free. DH News Service