The Common Admission Test (CAT) is an annual online entrance examination for admission into the prestigious IIMs and various other 1200+ MBA institutes in India. Phase I of the examination is a written test comprising objective questions, basis the result of which institutes release their respective shortlists for phase 2 – Written Ability Tests (WATs)/Group Discussions (GD) and Personal Interviews (PI). Candidates need to qualify both phases to gain admission into an institute.

The exam is administered by a different IIM every year on a revolving basis. The written exam covers questions from 3 broad areas:

Quantitative Ability (QA)
Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC)
Data Interpretation (DI) & Logical Reasoning (LR)

Official Website: www.iimcat.ac.in

CAT 2020

Notification release date: 29/07/2020
Registration: 05/08/2020 to 23/09/2020
Exam date: 29/11/2020
Result date: 02/01/2021
Conducted by: IIM Indore
Fee: Rs 2000/- (Gen) and Rs 1000/- (Reserved)
Applicants: 2.3 lakhs
Test Cities: 156

CAT 2021

Notification release date: July end (Tentative)
Registration: August-September (Tentative)
Exam date: November end (Tentative)
Result date: January (Tentative)

Eligibility Criteria

Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent) with at least 50% marks or equivalent GPA (45% in case of SC, ST, PWD candidates).

Final year appearing undergraduate students also eligible.

Latest Update

Latest Updates

SPJIMR final shortlist released
NMIMS final shortlist released
SIBM Pune final shortlist released
TISS PI shortlist released
NITIE PI shortlist released
IIM Kozhikode releases stage 1 shortlist
CAT 2020 result highlights
- Nine 100 percentilers in CAT 2020, all of which are male
- Seven out of nine 100 percentilers are engineers (includes five IITians) and one 100 percentiler is from IIM Indore IPM program
- 19 candidates with 99.99 percentile, out of which 18 are male and 1 female
- 16 out of these 19 candidates are engineers, 2 have come from economics background and 1 has come from management background

Exam Pattern

It is paramount to know the examination pattern in advance to have a more accurate and effective preparation strategy.

	CAT 2019	CAT 2020	CAT 2021 (Tentative)
Sections	3 (VARC, LR & DI, QA)	3 (VARC, LR & DI, QA)	3 (VARC, LR & DI, QA)
Total duration	180 mins*	120 mins*	180 mins*
Total marks	300	228	300
Total questions	100 (MCQs/Type-in)	76 (MCQs/Type-in)	100 (MCQs/Type-in)
Marking	+3/-1^#	+3/-1^#	+3/-1^#

*Please note that each section is individually timed

^#No negative marking for wrong non-MCQ response

Section-wise details for CAT 2019:

Quantitative Ability (QA) – 34 questions | 22 MCQs and 12 non-MCQs | 60 mins
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) – 10 VA questions (3 MCQs + 7 non-MCQs) and 24 RC questions (MCQs)| 60 mins
Data Interpretation (DI) & Logical Reasoning (LR) – 16 DI questions and 16 LR questions | 24 MCQs and 8 non-MCQs | 60 mins

Section-wise details for CAT 2020:

Quantitative Ability (QA) – 26 questions | 18 MCQs and 8 non-MCQs | 40 mins
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) – 8 VA questions (non-MCQs) and 18 RC questions (MCQs)| 40 mins
Data Interpretation (DI) & Logical Reasoning (LR) – 14 DI questions and 10 LR questions | 18 MCQs and 6 non-MCQs | 40 mins

Section-wise details for CAT 2021 (Tentative):

Quantitative Ability (QA) – 34 questions | 60 mins
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) – 10 VA questions and 24 RC questions | 60 mins
Data Interpretation (DI) & Logical Reasoning (LR) – 16 DI questions and 16 LR questions | 60 mins

Syllabus

Following is the composition and distribution of questions amongst various topics for CAT 2021 (expected). Please note that the same changes every year depending on the institute conducting the exam.

Quantitative Ability (QA):

Geometry (29%), Algebra (24%), Arithmetic (23%), Number system (15%), Modern maths (9%)

Trigonometry, Mensuration, Partnership (Accounts), Profit & Loss, Ratios and Proportion, In-equations Quadratic and linear equations, Surds and Indices, Time-Speed-Distance, Number System, Geometric Progression, Inequalities, Work and Time, Percentages, Logarithms

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC):

Interpretation-based, title-based, vocabulary-based etc. questions from reading passages (70%), Parajumbles (12%), Summary-based (9%), Sentence correction, completion and out-of-context identification (9%)

Word count in RC for long passages hovers around 900 words and for short passages around 600 words. Topics may vary a lot – politics, environment, science, literature, history, mythology, technology, economy and abstract topics.

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR):

DI (50%) and LR (50%)

Blood Relations, Series, Proposition, Direction Sense, Coding-Decoding, Assumptions, Puzzles, Clocks and Calendars, Statements, Data Arrangement, Family Tree, Binary Logic, Seating Arrangement, Sets & Caselets, Syllogism, Venn Diagram, Data Structures, Tables & Pie Charts, Data Sufficiency, Bars & Line Graphs

Cut Off

Cutoffs

Please note that the below cutoffs depict the minimum CAT percentile that a candidate has to score to qualify for a call from respective b-school.

Old IIMs:

Institute	Section	GENERAL	OBC-NC	SC	ST	EWS	PwD (except ST)	PwD (ST)
IIM Ahmedabad	VARC	70	65	60	50		60	50
	DI&LR	70	65	60	50		60	50
	QA	70	65	60	50		60	50
	Aggregate	80	75	70	60		70	60
IIM Bangalore	VARC	85	75	70	60	70	50
	DI&LR	80	70	65	60	65	50
	QA	80	70	65	60	65	50
	Aggregate	90	80	75	70	75	60
IIM Calcutta	VARC	85	75	65	60	70	60
	DI&LR	80	75	65	60	65	60
	QA	80	75	65	60	65	60
	Aggregate	90	85	70	70	75	70
IIM Lucknow	VARC	85	77	55	50	77	50
	DI&LR	85	77	55	50	77	50
	QA	85	77	55	50	77	50
	Aggregate	90	82	70	65	82	65
IIM Kozhikode	VARC	75	65	55	45	65	45
	DI&LR	75	65	55	45	65	45
	QA	75	65	55	45	65	45
	Aggregate	85	75	65	55	75	55
IIM Indore	VARC	80	70	55	45	80	45
	DILR	80	70	55	45	80	45
	QA	80	70	55	45	80	45
	Aggregate	90	80	60	55	90	50

New IIMs:

Institute	Section	GENERAL	OBC-NC	SC	ST	DAP	EWS
IIM Trichy	VARC	80	60	50	50	50
	DILR	80	60	50	50	50
	QA	80	60	50	50	50
	Aggregate	95	78	60	65	65
IIM Shillong	VARC	75	75	50	60	50	75
	DILR	75	75	50	60	50	75
	QA	75	75	50	60	50	75
IIM Udaipur	VARC	80	60	50	30	30	80
	DILR	80	60	50	30	30	80
	QA	80	60	50	30	30	80
	Aggregate	90	78	60	40	40	85
IIM Ranchi	VARC	80	60	45	30	30	60
	DILR	80	60	45	30	30	60
	QA	80	60	45	30	30	60
	Aggregate	94	75	55	40	40	75
IIM Rohtak	VARC	70	60	50	30	30	70
	DILR	70	60	50	30	30	70
	QA	70	60	50	30	30	70
	Aggregate	95	78	60	40	40	95
IIM Raipur	VARC	80	60	50	30	30	80
	DILR	80	60	50	30	30	80
	QA	80	60	50	30	30	80
	Aggregate	90	78	60	40	40	85
IIM Kashipur	VARC	80	60	45	30	30	60
	DILR	80	60	45	30	30	60
	QA	80	60	45	30	30	60
	Aggregate	94	75	55	40	40	75

Baby IIMs:

Institute	Section	GENERAL	OBC-NC	SC	ST	PwD	EWS	DAP
IIM Amritsar	VARC	80	65	55	35	35
	DI and LR	75	60	50	35	35
	QA	75	60	50	35	35
	Aggregate	85	75	55	40	40
IIM Bodh Gaya	VARC	80	60	45	30	30	60
	DI&LR	80	60	45	30	30	60
	QA	80	60	45	30	30	60
	Aggregate	91	73	50	38	35	70
IIM Nagpur	VARC	72	65	50	40			40
	DILR	72	65	50	40			40
	QA	72	65	50	40			40
	Aggregate	85	76.5	60	40			55
IIM Sambalpur	VARC	80	60	45	30		60	30
	DILR	80	60	45	30		60	30
	QA	80	60	45	30		60	30
	Aggregate	94	75	55	40		75	40
IIM Sirmaur	VARC	80	60	45	30			30
	DILR	80	60	45	30			30
	QA	80	60	45	30			30
	Aggregate	94	75	55	40			40
IIM Vishakha Patnam	VARC	85	75	60	50	50
	DILR	80	70	60	50	50
	QA	80	70	60	50	50
	Aggregate	90	80	75	55	50
IIM Jammu	VARC	80	80	60	50	30		30
	DILR	80	80	60	50	30		30
	QA	80	80	60	50	30		30
	Aggregate	90	85	78	60	40		40