HYDERABAD : The Indian Insti tutes of Management and the Prometric, which conduct the online Common Admission Test, have extended the registration period for CAT-2010 by a week. The deadline has been extended from September 30 to October 7.

This is the first time in the 34-year history of the CAT that the due date to register for the exam has been extended.

Last year, the CAT was conducted online for the first time after being conducted in a pencil-paper format for 33 years.

The cold response to online CAT this year is apparently a result of the fact that last year’s exam was marred by several technical glitches that had forced the Prometric to reconduct the exam at several centres. As a result, the deadline has been extended.

The poor response is also being attributed to large number of aspirants from semi-urban and rural areas possibly shying away from the CAT as they are not comfortable taking the computer-based test This time, the number of centres has been reduced from 104 to 78, and the number of computers from 17,000 to 9,000. The testing window has been increased from 10 to 20 days.

Tighter security measures have also been put in place in order to prevent proxy candidates from taking the test.