Can old rats learn new tricks?

Yes they can. I have personally witnessed 77 other rats figure the “how-to-survive-IIMA-PGPX-Term-I” trick out. Here is how IIM-A taught the trick:

- Locked rats in a cage (called PGPX) with trick contraptions (really complex; and “crazy-sounding” subjects)
- Showed them a really large chunk of cheese that they can have in the future (senior management jobs!)
- Rewarded them with little morsels of cheese each time they made a headway figuring out a trick (grades)
- Punished them with little dozes of electric current (quizzes)
- And did not let them rest till they figured the tricks out – threw cold water (cases) at them, kicked the cage (term exams), and threw more puzzles (incrementally harder) at them each time they figured a trick out.
And wow, there is a group of semi-trained rats (not necessarily smarter ones though!).

The first term of the course is finally over and we had exactly 4 hours of break before the group jumped into the bulky (what else do you call 25 kgs of books and case spirals) second term material.

Here are some statistics of what the group (of rats) went through in the last ten weeks: (compiled by a colleague rat who is great at figuring out really complex “mazes”)
- Worked on close to 75 cases
- Wrote 12 surprise quizzes/mid-term
- Wrote 9 full-length exams
- Attended 140 classes (each session – 75 minutes)
- Wrote/co-wrote/contributed to close to 50 reports/ submissions/PPTs

Don’t you think rats (real ones) are luckier?