After last year's technical glitches, American firm Prometric that conducted CAT 2009 today said it was taking steps for a trouble-free entrance exam to the elite B-schools scheduled from October 27 to November 23.

"We are upgrading the physical and technical infrastructure of all test centres in the country for CAT this year," its managing director Soumitra Roy said.

Prometric said internal investigations revealed unlicensed softwares and non-updated anti virus at the test centres in CAT 2009, which were the root of the problems at some centres.

This year, Prometric has decided to purchase original software and give it to the test centres.

With an expanded time-frame for the examination this year, the service provider would use only 9,000 computers in comparison to 17,000 last year to conduct the examination in 33 cities, 78 centres and 247 testing labs in the country.

From this year, Prometric will also conduct a practice test to familiarise candidates with the navigation and functionality of CAT which will be available at www.catiim.in from October first week.

The tutorial with 12 questions will make students aware of various modalities of the computer-based test.

The test window will remain open for 20 days in comparison to 10 days in 2009.

Last year, the computer-based test drew flak from many quarters as a few thousand students failed to appear in the exam owing to the disruptions caused by virus attack and other technical glitches.