CAT 2025 Latest
Conducted by IIM Kozhikode, 30 Nov 2025
Pattern repeated unchanged from 2024. VARC kept four RC passages, DILR four sets.
Nine years of CAT, decoded.
How the paper has changed since 2017, where the marks come from in each section, and solved questions written in the style of past papers.
Year by year
Question counts are shown as VARC / DILR / QA.
CAT 2024
Conducted by IIM Calcutta, 24 Nov 2024
DILR grew from 20 to 22 questions, taking the paper to 68 questions.
CAT 2023
Conducted by IIM Lucknow, 26 Nov 2023
Same 66-question structure as 2021 and 2022.
CAT 2022
Conducted by IIM Bangalore, 27 Nov 2022
Stable pattern with 40 minutes per section.
CAT 2021
Conducted by IIM Ahmedabad, 28 Nov 2021
The 66-question, 120-minute format was introduced.
CAT 2020
Conducted by IIM Indore, 29 Nov 2020
The exam was cut from 180 to 120 minutes, with 40 minutes per section.
CAT 2019
Conducted by IIM Kozhikode, 24 Nov 2019
The last year of the 100-question, 3-hour format.
CAT 2018
Conducted by IIM Calcutta, 25 Nov 2018
60 minutes per section across two slots.
CAT 2017
Conducted by IIM Lucknow, 26 Nov 2017
Two slots with 100 questions in 3 hours.
Topic weightage
Approximate number of questions per slot in recent papers (2021 to 2025). Use it to decide where your hours go.
| QA topic | Qs |
|---|---|
| Arithmetic | 7 to 9 |
| Algebra | 6 to 8 |
| Geometry and mensuration | 3 to 5 |
| Number systems | 1 to 3 |
| Modern maths | 1 to 3 |
| VARC area | Qs |
|---|---|
| Reading comprehension | 16 |
| Para-jumbles | 2 to 3 |
| Odd sentence out | 2 |
| Para summary | 2 to 3 |
| DILR set type | Sets |
|---|---|
| Tables, charts and caselets | 1 to 2 |
| Arrangements and scheduling | 1 to 2 |
| Games and tournaments | 0 to 1 |
| Quant-based puzzles | 0 to 1 |
Solved practice in the past-paper style
Original questions modelled on recurring CAT question types. Try each one before opening the solution.
Question 1VARCTITA
Four of the five sentences form a coherent paragraph. Type the number of the sentence that does not belong.
- Monsoon forecasts in India rely heavily on readings of ocean surface temperature.
- Warmer than usual waters in the eastern Pacific often weaken the Indian monsoon.
- Farmers time their sowing according to these forecasts.
- Cricket matches in July are frequently interrupted by rain.
- Forecast accuracy has improved as more ocean buoys have been deployed.
Show answer and solution
Answer: 4
Sentences 1, 2, 3 and 5 are about how monsoon forecasts are made and used. Sentence 4 mentions rain but has nothing to do with forecasting.
Question 3DILRMCQ
Three boxes are labelled Apples, Oranges and Mixed. Every label is wrong. You may take out one fruit from one box without looking inside. Which box should you choose so that you can then relabel all three boxes correctly?
- The box labelled Apples
- The box labelled Oranges
- The box labelled Mixed
- It cannot be done with one fruit
Show answer and solution
Answer: C
The box labelled Mixed must contain only one kind of fruit. If you draw an apple, it is the Apples box. The box labelled Oranges cannot be Oranges and cannot be Apples, so it is Mixed, and the last box is Oranges. Drawing an orange works the same way.
Question 5QATITA
If x + 1/x = 3, what is the value of x2 + 1/x2?
Show answer and solution
Answer: 7
Square both sides: x2 + 2 + 1/x2 = 9, so x2 + 1/x2 = 7.
Question 2VARCMCQ
Choose the option that best summarises the paragraph: "Cities that add highway lanes to relieve congestion often find that traffic returns to its old levels within a few years. The new capacity makes driving more attractive, drawing in trips that people previously avoided, made by other means, or made at other times."
- Highways should never be widened.
- Extra road capacity tends to create new traffic that wipes out the congestion benefit.
- People prefer public transport to driving.
- Congestion is caused mainly by poor city planning.
Show answer and solution
Answer: B
The paragraph explains why widening fails: added capacity induces new demand. A is too absolute, and C and D are not stated.
Question 4DILRTITA
Six teams play a round-robin tournament in which every team plays every other team exactly once. A win earns 2 points, a draw earns 1 point to each team and a loss earns 0. What is the total number of points earned by all teams together?
Show answer and solution
Answer: 30
There are C(6, 2) = 15 matches, and every match hands out exactly 2 points whatever the result, so the total is 30.
Question 6QAMCQ
A committee of 3 is to be formed from 5 men and 4 women. In how many ways can this be done if the committee must include at least one woman?
- 64
- 70
- 74
- 80
Show answer and solution
Answer: C
Total committees C(9, 3) = 84. Committees with no woman C(5, 3) = 10. So 84 − 10 = 74.
Where to find the official papers
After each exam the IIMs release the question papers, response sheets and provisional answer keys through the candidate login on iimcat.ac.in. Coaching institutes also publish memory-based papers and slot analyses within days of the exam.
Best practice: solve at least the last three years' papers under the full 120-minute timing, one slot per sitting, and analyse them the same way you analyse a mock.