100+ Free CAT Practice Questions
Pass your Common Admission Test exam on the first try — instant access, no signup required.
Read: 'The premise of personalised medicine is that the right treatment for the right patient at the right time will outperform broad-based therapy. Decoding individual genomes is now cheap; matching that data to treatment decisions is not.' The author implies that:
Explore More India University Entrance Exams
Continue into nearby exams from the same family. Each card keeps practice questions, study guides, flashcards, videos, and articles in one place.
Key Facts: CAT Exam
120 minutes
Total exam time (40 minutes per section)
iimcat.ac.in
+3 / -1
MCQ marking (TITA has 0 negative)
CAT Information Bulletin
21 IIMs
Accept CAT for flagship MBA/PGP
Indian Institutes of Management
99+ percentile
Typical cutoff for top 6 IIMs
IIM Ahmedabad/Bangalore/Calcutta admission policy
100
Free practice questions here
OpenExamPrep
CAT is a 120-minute computer-based MBA admission test with three sectionally-timed sections (VARC, DILR, QA) of 40 minutes each. ~66 questions total with +3/-1 marking on MCQs and 0 penalty on TITA non-MCQ items. Top IIMs require 99+ percentile.
Sample CAT Practice Questions
Try these sample questions to test your CAT exam readiness. Each question includes a detailed explanation. Start the interactive quiz above for the full 100+ question experience with AI tutoring.
1Read the following passage and answer: 'The notion that the brain operates like a computer has dominated cognitive science for half a century. Yet the analogy increasingly looks like a category error: neurons are not switches, synapses are not transistors, and the wet electrochemistry of thought bears scant resemblance to the silicon substrate.' What is the author's primary stance toward the brain-as-computer analogy?
2From the same passage above, what does the phrase 'category error' most nearly mean in context?
3Arrange the following four sentences into a coherent paragraph: (A) These birds were once thought to migrate to the moon. (B) Modern tracking has shown they fly to sub-Saharan Africa. (C) For centuries, Europeans could not explain where swallows went each winter. (D) Tagging studies in the 1900s finally settled the mystery. The correct order is:
4Identify the odd sentence: (1) The Mughal emperors patronised Persian miniature painting throughout the seventeenth century. (2) Court ateliers produced lavish illustrated manuscripts under Akbar and Jahangir. (3) Indian classical music absorbed Persian modal influences during the same period. (4) Shah Jahan commissioned the Padshahnama, one of the finest illustrated chronicles of the era.
5Choose the option that best summarises the paragraph: 'Behavioural economists have shown that human decisions deviate systematically from the rational-agent model assumed by classical theory. Loss aversion, anchoring, and present bias are not noise to be averaged away — they are robust regularities. Policy designed without these regularities tends to under-perform; policy that builds them in (default enrolments, salience cues) routinely outperforms standard incentives.'
6Choose the sentence that best completes the paragraph: 'Open-source software was once a fringe movement led by hobbyists who shared code on bulletin boards. Today, the world's largest corporations contribute the bulk of code to projects such as Linux, Kubernetes, and React. ____'
7Which assumption is required for the argument: 'Cities with bike lanes have lower emissions than cities without. Therefore, building more bike lanes will reduce a city's emissions.'?
8Which option, if true, most weakens this argument: 'A new vitamin supplement reduces fatigue. In a trial, 70 percent of users reported less tiredness after one month, so doctors should recommend it.'?
9Arrange to form a coherent paragraph: (A) But scientists have since traced the cycle to ocean-atmosphere interactions in the Pacific. (B) El Nino was once viewed as a curious local warming off the coast of Peru. (C) Today El Nino forecasts inform agricultural planning across four continents. (D) These interactions, dubbed ENSO, drive global weather patterns.
10Identify the odd sentence: (1) The Bauhaus school championed functional design stripped of ornament. (2) Walter Gropius founded it in Weimar in 1919. (3) Renaissance architects revived classical Roman proportions and detailing. (4) Bauhaus ideas spread to American universities after the school closed in 1933.
About the CAT Exam
CAT (Common Admission Test) is India's premier MBA entrance exam, conducted annually by one of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM). It is the primary admission gateway to the 21 IIMs and over 1,200 other top B-schools including FMS Delhi, MDI Gurgaon, SPJIMR, IMT Ghaziabad, IMI, and NMIMS. The Computer-Based Test runs 120 minutes split equally across Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Aptitude (QA). Candidates cannot navigate between sections.
Questions
100 scored questions
Time Limit
120 minutes total (40 minutes per section)
Passing Score
No fixed pass; IIMs set percentile cutoffs (95-99+ for top IIMs)
Exam Fee
INR 2400 (General); INR 1200 (SC/ST/PwD/Women) (Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) — conducting IIM rotates annually)
CAT Exam Content Outline
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)
Reading comprehension passages (4-5 per paper), para jumbles, odd-one-out sentence, para summary (4-option), para completion, critical reasoning
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR)
DI sets (tables, bar/pie/line charts, caselets), LR puzzles (linear/circular arrangements, distributions, matrices, blood relations, ordering, Venn diagrams, data sufficiency)
Quantitative Aptitude (QA)
Arithmetic (percentages, profit/loss, SI/CI, TSD, time-work, mixtures), algebra (equations, inequalities, logarithms, functions), geometry, mensuration, number systems, modern math (P&C, probability, sequences, set theory)
How to Pass the CAT Exam
What You Need to Know
- Passing score: No fixed pass; IIMs set percentile cutoffs (95-99+ for top IIMs)
- Exam length: 100 questions
- Time limit: 120 minutes total (40 minutes per section)
- Exam fee: INR 2400 (General); INR 1200 (SC/ST/PwD/Women)
Keys to Passing
- Complete 500+ practice questions
- Score 80%+ consistently before scheduling
- Focus on highest-weighted sections
- Use our AI tutor for tough concepts
CAT Study Tips from Top Performers
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the CAT exam pattern in 2026?
CAT is a 120-minute computer-based test with three sections: VARC, DILR, and QA. Each section is 40 minutes (53 minutes 20 seconds for PwD candidates), and you cannot move between sections. There are approximately 66 questions in total — a mix of multiple-choice (MCQs) and Type-In-The-Answer (TITA) non-MCQ items.
What is the marking scheme for CAT?
Correct answers earn +3 marks. MCQs carry -1 negative marking for incorrect answers, while TITA non-MCQ questions have no negative marking. Unanswered questions receive 0 marks. This makes selective attempting in MCQs important and aggressive attempting on TITA questions advantageous.
Who conducts CAT and which IIMs accept the score?
CAT is conducted by one of the 21 IIMs on a rotational basis each year (CAT 2025 by IIM Bangalore, for example). The score is accepted by all 21 IIMs and over 1,200 other Indian business schools including FMS Delhi, MDI Gurgaon, SPJIMR Mumbai, IMT Ghaziabad, IMI New Delhi, and NMIMS.
What percentile is required to get into top IIMs?
Top IIMs (IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, Lucknow, Indore, Kozhikode) typically shortlist candidates with 98-99+ overall percentile, with each IIM setting its own sectional cutoffs. New and Baby IIMs may shortlist at 90-95 percentile. Final admission also depends on academic record, work experience, gender diversity, WAT/PI performance.
When is CAT held and when do registrations open?
CAT is typically held on the last Sunday of November. Registrations open in early August and close in mid-September. The official notification is published on iimcat.ac.in. Admit cards are usually released in early November.
Is CAT only for engineers? What is the eligibility?
No. Eligibility is a Bachelor's degree with at least 50 percent marks (45 percent for SC/ST/PwD). Any graduate from any discipline can apply. While a large share of candidates are engineers, IIMs actively promote diversity through non-engineering and gender diversity points in many programmes.