CAT
The gateway to the 21 Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and the primary MBA entrance score for 1,000+ B-schools including FMS Delhi, MDI, SPJIMR and most IITs' management programmes.
Eligibility
A bachelor's degree in any discipline with at least 50% marks (45% for SC/ST/PwD); final-year students may apply. There is no age limit and no cap on the number of attempts. Work experience is not required for the exam, though it counts in later admission rounds at many IIMs.
Age limit: No age limit
Exam pattern
Computer-based test of 120 minutes, held in three sessions on a single day. Three sections in fixed order: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Ability (QA), with 40 minutes per section and no switching between sections. Recent papers have carried 68 questions for 204 marks (VARC 24, DILR 22, QA 22). Marking is +3 for a correct answer and -1 for an incorrect multiple-choice question; Type-In-The-Answer (TITA) questions carry no negative marking. Scores are normalised across sessions and reported as percentiles.
Syllabus at a glance
VARC tests reading comprehension passages, para-jumbles, para-summary and odd-sentence questions. DILR covers reasoning-heavy puzzle sets, arrangements, games and data sets built on tables, charts and caselets. QA spans arithmetic (the largest chunk), algebra, geometry and mensuration, number systems, and modern maths topics such as permutations, probability and logarithms. There is no defined official syllabus; past papers set the boundary.
Upcoming dates
| Event | Date | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Official notification (CAT 2026) | 25 Jul 2026 (released) | confirmed |
| Registration window | 3 Aug – 15 Sep 2026 | confirmed |
| Admit card download | First week of Nov 2026 | expected |
| Exam date | 29 Nov 2026 (Sunday, three sessions) | confirmed |
| Result declaration | First week of Jan 2027 | expected |
Expected dates follow the usual calendar; confirm on the official notification before planning.
Free prep material
Standard books
- How to Prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT — Arun Sharma
- How to Prepare for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for the CAT — Arun Sharma & Meenakshi Upadhyay
- How to Prepare for Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning for the CAT — Arun Sharma
- Quantum CAT — Sarvesh K. Verma
- Word Power Made Easy — Norman Lewis
How toppers play it
- Respect the 40-minute sectional locks: build your strategy per section, not per paper — you cannot bank time from a strong section for a weak one.
- In DILR, set selection decides everything: spend the first 3-4 minutes scanning all sets and commit to the 3-4 most doable ones rather than attempting in order.
- Attempt TITA questions even on a guess — they carry no negative marking, unlike multiple-choice questions at -1.
- Percentiles are normalised across three sessions, so accuracy beats raw attempts; a 95+ percentile has recently needed only about 45-50 good attempts out of 68.
- Take at least 15-20 full-length mocks between September and November and analyse each one for longer than you took to write it.