CAT PYQ: Previous Year Question Papers 2015–2025

This page lists CAT previous year question papers for 11 years, 2015 to 2025, with labelled mock papers for 11 years with no official question paper. CAT (Common Admission Test) is conducted by one of the IIMs, in rotation, and covers Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR) and Quantitative Ability (QA). Pick a year below for the paper, answer key and a timed practice plan; confirm dates and pattern on iimcat.ac.in.

Explore: Question papers by year · Syllabus & pattern · Pattern changes · FAQ

Year-wise question papers

CAT 2026 has not been held yet. It is on 29 November 2026, in three sessions, with IIM Indore as the convening institute. The CAT 2026 page has the dates and what to expect; the papers below are the ones to practise from.

Want to practise one topic at a time? CAT topic-wise practice sorts the 220 questions from our labelled mock papers by section and topic.

About CAT

CAT is the entrance test for the MBA and PGP programmes at the IIMs, and a large number of other business schools use the same score for their own shortlists. It is held once a year, usually on a Sunday in late November, and the IIMs take turns to run it. The conducting IIM sets the paper, publishes the notification on iimcat.ac.in and handles answer keys and results.

The paper has three sections: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Quantitative Ability (QA). Each section has its own timer, and you cannot move between sections. Most questions are multiple choice. The rest are TITA (type in the answer) questions, where you enter a number or a sequence and there are no options to work back from.

The IIMs do not publish CAT papers for download. Candidates see their own response sheet and the provisional answer key after the exam, and the questions spread from there through memory-based compilations and coaching institutes. That is why the year pages here use clearly labelled mock papers built from candidate reports. They follow each year’s reported pattern, but the questions are our own.

Old papers matter for CAT more than for most exams because the difficulty of coaching mocks swings a lot. Some series are much harder than the real paper, others are too gentle. Past papers show you what a real IIM-set RC passage reads like, how long a real DILR set takes to crack, and how many Quant questions in a section are actually there for the taking. The section-wise syllabus and marking table are on the CAT syllabus and pattern page.

How the paper has changed since 2015

CAT’s structure was rebuilt in 2015 and cut down twice after that. If you plan to use ten years of papers, sit each one with the current two-hour clock and 40 minutes per section, even when that year’s paper was longer. The questions are still good practice. The timing should match the exam you will face.

Marking has stayed the same throughout this period: +3 for a correct answer, −1 for a wrong multiple-choice answer, and no penalty for a wrong TITA answer. The number of TITA questions in each section changes from year to year, so check the brochure for your year rather than assuming last year’s split.

Because the exam runs in several slots, scores are normalised across slots before percentiles are calculated. A slot that felt harder does not put you at a disadvantage, which is one reason to stop comparing raw scores with friends who sat a different slot.

The 100-question papers from 2015 to 2019 had more RC passages and more DILR sets per section than you will see now. That makes them useful as a source of extra passages and sets for sectional practice, even if you never sit one as a full paper.

What the papers show, section by section

VARC (24 questions)

Reading comprehension carries most of this section, usually four passages with four questions each. The rest are verbal ability questions: para jumbles, para summaries and odd-sentence-out questions, several of them TITA. Grammar and vocabulary questions have not been part of the paper for years, so do not spend time on them.

When you check a past paper, split your RC mistakes into two groups. One group is questions where you misread the passage. The other is questions where you understood the passage but picked an option that sounded right because it repeated words from a nearby sentence without answering what was asked. The second group is far more common in CAT, and the fix is to read the question stem again before you look at the options.

Note how many passages you finished in each paper and how many you finished cleanly. Most students do better by reading three passages carefully than by rushing through four. Para jumbles, being TITA, carry no penalty, so attempt them if time allows, but do not let a jumble eat five minutes that belonged to a passage.

DILR (20 to 22 questions)

DILR is scored set by set. A typical section has four or five sets with four to six questions each, and in most years nobody is expected to solve all of them. Your real task is choosing which two or three sets to spend time on.

Arrangement and scheduling sets, games and tournaments, Venn-diagram caselets, route and network questions, and table-and-chart hybrids all come back regularly. After each past paper, spend a few minutes writing down how you knew whether a set was worth attempting. Look at the size of the data, whether the conditions are numerical or verbal, and whether you could find the first fixed point quickly. Over five or six papers this turns into a personal checklist that is more useful than any set-type guide.

Leaving a set after three or four minutes is a skill. Practise it on the 2016 and 2020 papers, both of which had DILR sections that many students found hard.

QA (22 questions)

Arithmetic (percentages, profit and loss, ratios, averages, time and work, time and distance, mixtures) has given the largest share of Quant questions in most years. Algebra comes next, then geometry and mensuration, number systems and a smaller amount of modern maths such as permutations, probability and progressions.

Tag every Quant mistake as one of three things: a formula you did not know, an approach you did not see, or a calculation slip. The fixes are different. A formula gap needs a short revision sheet. An approach gap needs more solved examples of that question type. A slip needs slower working, not more theory.

In each past paper, go through the section once and pick off the questions you can solve in under two minutes before you touch anything harder. With 22 questions in 40 minutes, a clean first round of eight or ten correct answers is worth more than a long fight with one geometry question.

Notes on recent years

2025 was set by IIM Kozhikode on the same 68-question pattern as 2023 and 2024. It is the closest thing you have to your own exam, so save it for a point where your preparation is well along, and sit it strictly timed.

2023 and 2024 both used the 68-question format with 22 DILR questions. These are the best papers for setting your current pacing in each section. If you only have time for a few full papers, start here.

2021 and 2022 had 66 questions, with 20 in DILR. The difference is small. Sit them with the full 40 minutes per section and treat them as current-format papers.

2020 was the first two-hour CAT, cut down during COVID, with 76 questions. Sectional practice from it is still useful. DILR in particular was found hard in many slots.

2015 to 2019 were three-hour papers with 100 questions. Do not sit them as full papers. Take two or three RC passages, two DILR sets or ten Quant questions at a time, and time them at roughly the current rate of about a minute and three-quarters per question.

Using old papers at different stages of preparation

With a year or more to go

Work on basics first: arithmetic, algebra, reading habits and a few DILR set types. After you finish a Quant topic, solve every past CAT question on it that you can find. Read one or two RC passages from old papers every day, without a timer at first, and check how close your answers are to the key. Sit one full paper a month just to get used to the two-hour format.

With about six months to go

Move to one full paper a week, alternating between past papers and mocks. Spend the next day reviewing every wrong and skipped question, and write each into an error log with the section, topic and the type of mistake. Your study for the rest of the week should come from that log. A rough weekly shape that works for many students is one full paper, one review day, two repair sessions on logged topics, one DILR selection drill where you look at four sets and decide in three minutes which to drop, and one day off.

In the last two or three months

Sit full papers twice a week at the time of your slot. Use 2023, 2024 and 2025 for this stretch. Go through your error log once a week and re-solve the questions you got wrong earlier, without looking at the solutions. Stop starting new books or test series in the last month. What you need now is steady accuracy and calm selection, and both come from repetition on material you already know.

Mistakes students make with past papers

The biggest mistake is reading old papers without a timer. A DILR set looks easy once you have seen the solution, and an RC passage feels clear when you have no clock running. Untimed practice gives you a false idea of what you can do on the day.

The second is trying to finish every DILR set. Strong DILR scores usually come from two or three sets solved fully and accurately. Students who start every set and finish none lose both time and marks.

Many students also skip the TITA questions when they review. A blank TITA does not cost marks, so it is easy to ignore, but those questions often show a concept gap that the options in an MCQ would have hidden.

Do not set a raw score target from social media or group chats. Slots differ in difficulty, and scores are normalised, so a raw score that sounds low can still give you a good percentile. After five or six timed papers, look at three numbers per section: how many you attempted, how many of those were correct, and your score. Improve accuracy first, then selection, and only then try to attempt more.

Finally, treat memory-based answer keys with some care. Check disputed answers against the official key from iimcat.ac.in before you decide you were wrong.

FAQ

Does IIM release CAT question papers?

Not as a public download. After the exam, each candidate can see their own response sheet and the provisional answer key on iimcat.ac.in. The papers you find online come from those response sheets and from candidates’ memory, which is why the year pages here use labelled mock papers that follow each year’s reported pattern.

How many years of CAT papers should I solve?

Sit every paper from 2020 to 2025 as a full timed paper, since they match the current two-hour format. Use the 2015 to 2019 papers for sectional practice: they have more RC passages and DILR sets than the current paper, which makes them a good source of extra material.

What is the CAT exam pattern now?

Since 2023, CAT has had 68 questions in 2 hours: 24 in VARC, 22 in DILR and 22 in QA, with 40 minutes for each section. A correct answer gets 3 marks, a wrong multiple-choice answer loses 1, and a wrong TITA answer loses nothing. Check the brochure for your year before the exam.

How should I sit the older three-hour CAT papers?

Break them into sections rather than sitting them whole. Take two or three passages, a couple of DILR sets or ten Quant questions at a time, and give yourself roughly a minute and three-quarters per question. That keeps the practice close to the pace of the current paper.

How do I compare my score across different CAT slots?

You can’t, directly. Slots differ in difficulty and the IIMs normalise scores before working out percentiles. Judge your past paper attempts by how many questions you attempted, how many were right, and whether you chose the right sets and passages, not by matching a raw score someone posted from another slot.

Should I attempt every DILR set in a past paper?

No. In most papers, solving two or three sets fully is enough for a good DILR score. Practise looking at every set for a minute or two first, then committing to the ones with clear starting points. Note which sets you should have left and why.

Are past papers enough to prepare for CAT?

They are not a full course. You still need to learn the Quant topics and build reading habits from other material. Past papers tell you where your gaps are and train your timing and selection, so use them alongside your study, not after it.

How many past papers should I sit per week near the exam?

In the last two or three months, two full papers a week is enough for most students, with a full review after each. Earlier in your preparation, one a week is plenty. More papers without review does not raise your score.

Where to get the official papers

CAT notifications, the brochure, answer keys and results are published on iimcat.ac.in by the IIM conducting that year’s exam. Use the official answer key when an answer is in doubt. We link to official sources and add notes on each paper, but the current brochure is the final word on dates, pattern and eligibility.