1. Exam pattern at a glance
First, the fact most aspirants don't know: the IIMs have never published an official CAT syllabus. Everything below is reverse-engineered from actual papers — which is better, because papers tell you weightage, and weightage tells you where the marks live.
| Section | Questions | Time | Marks | Rough shape |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VARC — Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension | 24 | 40 min | 72 | 4 RC passages (16 Q) + 8 VA |
| DILR / LRDI — Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning | 22 | 40 min | 66 | ~5 sets of 4–5 questions |
| QA — Quantitative Ability | 22 | 40 min | 66 | ~14 MCQ + ~8 TITA |
Three slots on exam day (morning / afternoon / evening) with identical structure but different papers — scores are normalised across slots before percentiles are computed.
2. Marking scheme & the TITA rule
| Question type | Correct | Wrong | Skipped |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCQ | +3 | −1 | 0 |
| TITA (type the answer) | +3 | 0 — no negative | 0 |
3. VARC syllabus & weightage (24 questions)
The exact CAT 2025 split — expected to repeat in 2026:
| Topic | Questions | What it looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Reading Comprehension | 16 (4 passages × 4) | Inference-heavy questions on dense non-fiction passages |
| Para Summary | 2 | Pick the option that best compresses a short paragraph |
| Para Jumbles | 2 | Arrange 4 jumbled sentences in logical order (TITA) |
| Para Completion | 2 | Place a missing sentence at its most logical position |
| Odd Sentence Out | 2 | Five sentences, one doesn't belong — find it (TITA) |
And here's what those RC passages are actually about — every passage from CAT 2017 to 2024 (90 passages), classified by genre:
Prep implication: two-thirds of VARC is RC, every single year — and the genre data tells you what to read: science journalism, philosophy essays and economics long-reads beat fiction. Standalone grammar/vocabulary questions haven't appeared in years.
4. LRDI syllabus & weightage (22 questions)
The full topic list: puzzles (scheduling, distribution, grids), linear and circular arrangements, ranking & ordering, selection, Venn diagrams, games & tournaments on the LR side; tables, pie/line/bar charts, scatter and special charts, caselets and quant-based DI on the DI side. But the 8-year frequency data (114 sets, CAT 2017–2024) shows where sets actually come from:
| Set type | Share since 2017 | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Caselets | ~16% | Paragraph-form data needing your own table |
| Reasoning-based DI | ~14% | Charts where logic, not calculation, unlocks the set |
| Quant-based reasoning | ~11% | Number-driven puzzle sets |
| Venn diagrams | ~9% | Set overlaps, survey data |
| Scheduling & distribution puzzles | ~15% | Timetables, allocation grids |
| Special charts | ~8% | Unusual formats: radar, stacked, mixed |
| Tables & bar graphs | ~11% | Classic DI with calculations |
| Games & tournaments | ~6% | Round-robins, knockouts, scoring logic |
| Networks, routes, ranking, others | ~10% | Flows, paths, ordering |
Prep implication: LRDI is a set-selection game — ~5 sets, and toppers typically solve 3–4 fully rather than touching all five. Practising the first 5 minutes (scan, classify, choose) matters as much as solving speed.
5. QA syllabus & weightage (22 questions)
| Area | Weightage | Full sub-topic list |
|---|---|---|
| Arithmetic | ~40% | Percentages, profit & loss, SI & CI, ratio & proportion, averages, mixtures & alligation, time & work, pipes & cisterns, time-speed-distance, races, trains & boats |
| Algebra | ~35% | Linear & quadratic equations, polynomials, indices & surds, logarithms, inequalities, sequence & series, functions, graphs, modulus, maxima-minima |
| Geometry & Mensuration | ~15% | Triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, circles, 3-D mensuration, coordinate geometry |
| Number System | ~5% | Properties of integers, divisibility, factors, remainder theorem, factorials, trailing zeroes, last digits |
| Modern Math | ~5% | Set theory, permutation & combination, probability |
Zooming into individual topics — every QA question from CAT 2017 to 2024 (546 questions) counted — the top 10 look like this:
| # | Topic | Share of all QA questions |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Time-Speed-Distance | 8.2% |
| 2 | Sequence & Series | 6.6% |
| 3 | Logarithms | 6.0% |
| 4 | Time & Work | 5.7% |
| 5 | Quadratic Equations | 5.3% |
| 6 | Functions | 5.3% |
| 7 | Percentages | 4.8% |
| 8 | Profit & Loss | 4.8% |
| 9 | Averages | 4.8% |
| 10 | Mixtures & Alligation | 4.8% |
Prep implication: finish Arithmetic and Algebra to mastery before touching the long tail. A student who is elite at 75% of the section beats one who is average at 100% of it.
6. How hard is each section, really
Syllabus tells you what comes; it doesn't tell you how brutal it is. Every question in CAT 2025 (all three slots) rated on a 0–100 difficulty scale and bucketed:
The takeaway most aspirants get backwards: LRDI is by far the hardest section per question — roughly three-quarters of its questions rate hard — which is exactly why its 99th-percentile score is the lowest of the three (~30 marks in CAT 2025 vs ~44 in VARC). You don't need to conquer LRDI; you need to survive it better than everyone else. Meanwhile VARC and QA keep roughly 40% of their questions genuinely easy — finding those is the whole game.
7. How the pattern changed, 2020–2025
| Year | Questions | Max marks | VARC / DILR / QA |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAT 2020 | 76 | 228 | 26 / 24 / 26 |
| CAT 2021 | 66 | 198 | 24 / 20 / 22 |
| CAT 2022 | 66 | 198 | 24 / 20 / 22 |
| CAT 2023 | 66 | 198 | 24 / 20 / 22 |
| CAT 2024 | 68 | 204 | 24 / 22 / 22 |
| CAT 2025 | 68 | 204 | 24 / 22 / 22 |
The structure has settled: after the COVID-era 76-question paper and three years at 66, CAT has now run 68 questions / 204 marks twice in a row. Until the official CAT 2026 notification (expected late July / early August) says otherwise, prepare for exactly this pattern — and when it does change, it historically changes by a couple of questions, not in kind.
The syllabus is finite. The differentiator is speed — and speed is built in mocks.
Full-length CAT mocks, sectional tests (VARC / LRDI / QA) and actual CAT 2020–2025 past papers — free to start.
Start practicing on ExamDuo →8. FAQs
Is there an official CAT syllabus?
No — the IIMs have never released one. The topic list above is inferred from actual papers, which is why it's organised by weightage rather than chapters.
How many questions will CAT 2026 have?
Expected 68 (VARC 24, DILR 22, QA 22) for 204 marks — the same pattern as 2024 and 2025. Confirm when the official notification lands (typically late July/August).
Is there negative marking in TITA questions?
No. TITA is +3 / 0 — only MCQs carry the −1. CAT 2025 had ~20 TITA questions, so never leave a TITA blank.
Which QA topics matter most?
Arithmetic (~40%) and Algebra (~35%) — together roughly three-quarters of the section. See the QA weightage chart.
How many RC passages come in VARC?
Four passages, four questions each — 16 of the 24 questions. The other 8 are para jumbles, para summary and odd-sentence-out.
Can I switch between sections during the exam?
No — fixed order (VARC → DILR → QA), 40 minutes each, no going back. Build sectional time discipline into every mock.
