CAT 2025 is tentatively expected to be held in late November 2025. Every year, the Common Admission Test (CAT) is held by one of the old IIMs and taken by lakhs of management aspirants. It serves as the primary criterion for admission to the top B-schools of India. Hailed as the toughest MBA entrance exam, CAT is a computer-based test that evaluates the general aptitude skills of the candidates. After the exam, candidates are eager to learn about their performance and estimate their prospects of getting into a reputed B-school. So, here we provide a detailed CAT 2025 analysis and CAT exam analysis.

CAT is composed of three sections and has a total time limit of 120 minutes. Since the onset of covid-19, there have been several changes in the exam. These changes are likely to continue in CAT 2025. In terms of difficulty level, the CAT paper analysis indicates that the CAT 2025 paper is expected to be similar to that of the previous year. Here is the main overview based on the latest CAT analysis:

Given below is the expected sectional break-up of CAT 2025 exam, as per the latest CAT paper analysis:

CAT is conducted in three slots, and there are slight differences in the difficulty level and types of questions among different slot papers. However, the overall level is maintained across all slots. This time also, the difficulty level of VARC was relatively high. Here is the section-wise CAT 2025 analysis:

The verbal section was on the difficult side. As expected, it had four RC passages of 400-500 words and 4-5 questions each. Other questions were based on parajumbles, parasummary, and an odd-one-out. There were 3-4 non-MCQs in VARC, and most questions seemed tricky.

An attempt of 15+ questions with accuracy is sure to fetch a high score.

Similar to last year, this section was the most difficult. The DILR section had 4-5 sets with 4-6 questions each. The reasoning sets have information presented in tabular format. As always, this section was the lengthiest and toughest of all.

An attempt of 12+ questions with good accuracy will get you a fair percentile.

Quant section was a mix of moderate and tricky questions. As usual, most questions were from arithmetic-based topics and related commercial mathematics. Other important topics were algebra, Geometry & Mensuration, and Modern Maths. Overall, if attempted with the right approach, the quant section seemed manageable.

An attempt of 15+ questions with good accuracy will fetch 99+ percentile in the section.

After CAT 2025 results are out, you will be called for the next rounds like group discussion and personal interview.

CAT scores/percentiles are utilised to shortlist candidates for subsequent rounds. However, the B-schools institutes also consider other factors while selecting the candidates. These factors include past academic performance (class 10th & 12th marks, graduation marks), work experience, academic diversity, etc. The given table indicates the expected CAT cut-offs of the leading B-schools:

Further, several carry out profile-based calling instead of relying solely on CAT scores. Putting it other way, even the candidates with relatively less percentile but excellent profiles can get calls from top-ranked B-schools.

NOTE: An actual detailed CAT exam analysis of CAT 2025 done by our experts will be available here on the day of the exam.