During their wedding ceremony, when they took the vow that they will be there for each other during the ‘testing times’, they never thought it would take a literal sense some day. But, some couples are preparing together to face the toughest B-school exam in the country, kicking off on Saturday.

The sight of couples who have decided to appear for the Common Admission Test (CAT) together is not rare anymore. You find them in coaching centres, sitting side by side, and grappling with the theorems. They sit back to back in their drawing rooms and take mock tests. Once they are done, they head to the kitchen to cook dinner. With just one day to go for CAT 2011, preparations are at the peak and tensions are mounting. In the midst of it all, the only solace is that they are in it together.
“It’s fun to study together. Don’t people go for salsa? This is similar. We go to classes together. I am good in English, and he at Maths. We complement each other. It's a journey together. There are no ego issues. We have the same level of preparations and would take the test on the same day at the same centre,” said Soumya Rajesh, a CAT aspirant. She quit her job two months back to concentrate on CAT preparations.

Agreeing with her, Sachin Saha, an IT employee who is also attending CAT classes with his wife said, “The best way to study is combined study and who better than your wife? When I feel lazy, she will motivate me and vice versa. When we started off with our preparations, I wanted to do an MBA more than her. But now I think it’s the other way round. At home, we sit back to back and take tests without looking at each other, and then compare. Weekends are mainly at the coaching centre. No movies or no loafing around in malls. But we go out for dinner; at the coaching centre, we meet more friends than we otherwise do on weekends. I know many who have met their life partners at coaching centres!”
“When I am busy with my office work and do not have time to attend classes, my wife does. She teaches me. We sit together, discuss problems and try to solve them. We have the same engineering background and it helps,” said Sagar Varma, another techie.

Most of them hope to get into the same institute. Even if they don’t, they say it’s a matter of just two years and they don’t worry. Many have worked for several years and are confident of taking care of the finances even if both of them go to colleges and have no breadwinner in the family.