CAT Exam Questions with Answers [Added PYQ's] With Solutions

Overview: CAT exam questions have been asked from the three sections every year for the past nine years. These sections are Quantitative Ability (QA), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension.

• The Common Admission Test (CAT) is not just an exam but a crucial gateway for MBA aspirants for the top B schools in India.
• The CAT 2024 exam will be conducted online on 24 November 2024 across various centres in India.
• Over the years, this exam has transformed, both in its format and the level of questions, demanding students to adapt and prepare strategically.

In this blog, we will examine the type of CAT exam questions asked to give an idea of how the exam is conducted! Read on to know!

Download FREE Study Material for CAT Exam 2024 by SuperGrads

CAT Exam Questions Overview 

• The CAT exam, conducted across 159 cities in India, comprises three sections within a total duration of 120 minutes.
• Each section is allotted 40 minutes.
• The exam features 66 questions, testing candidates on various skills.

Preparing for CAT requires understanding its pattern, which includes familiarizing oneself with CAT previous question papers and mock tests. This preparation is crucial for achieving a good score. 

Sections	Total No. of Questions	MCQs	TITA Questions	Marks	Duration
Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)	24	21	3	72	40 min
Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DI & LR)	20	14	6	60	40 min
Quantitative Ability (QA)	22	14	8	66	40 min
Total	66	49	17	198	120 (2 hours)

The details of the CAT exam duration and pattern are tabulated above.

CAT Exam Question Paper PDF 

Access to past CAT question papers is invaluable for practice. These resources help build confidence and improve speed and accuracy in answering CAT exam questions. Regular practice with these papers also helps identify areas of strength and weakness, allowing for focused preparation. 

Download PDF Previous Year Paper 2023

Download PDF PYP 2022

Download PDF PYP 2021

Check | CAT Marking Scheme

CAT Exam Questions and Answers

Sample CAT Exam Questions are provided below to offer you an understanding of what type of questions are asked in CAT entrance exam:

Que 1. There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide in which blank (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence best fits.

Sentence: Having made citizens more and less knowledgeable than their predecessors, the Internet has proved to be both a blessing and a curse.

Paragraph: Never before has a population, nearly all of whom has enjoyed at a least a secondary school education, been exposed to so much information, whether in newspapers and magazines or through YouTube, Google, and Facebook. ___(1)___. Yet it is not clear that people today are more knowledgeable than their barely literate predecessors. Contemporary advances in technology offered more serious and inquisitive students access to realms of knowledge previously unimaginable and unavailable. ___(2)___. But such readily available knowledge leads many more students away from serious study, the reading of actual texts, and toward an inability to write effectively and grammatically. ___(3)___. It has let people choose sources that reinforce their opinions rather than encouraging them to question inherited beliefs. ___(4)___.

• A) Option 1
• B) Option 2
• C) Option 3 
• D) Option 4 

Prepare with | CAT Online Coaching 2024 by SuperGrads

Download Free Speed, Time & Distance Practice Questions

Que 2. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

It’s not that modern historians of medieval Africa have been ignorant about contacts between Ethiopia and Europe; they just had the power dynamic reversed. The traditional narrative stressed Ethiopia as weak and in trouble in the face of aggression from external forces, so Ethiopia sought military assistance from their fellow Christians to the north.

But the real story, buried in plain sight in medieval diplomatic texts, simply had not yet been put together by modern scholars. Recent research pushes scholars of medieval Europe to imagine a much more richly connected medieval world: at the beginning of the so-called Age of Exploration, there is evidence that the kings of Ethiopia were sponsoring their own missions of diplomacy, faith and commerce.

• A) Medieval texts have documented how strong connections between the Christian communities of Ethiopia and Europe were invaluable in establishing military and trade links between the two civilisations.
• B) Historians were under the illusion that Ethiopia needed military protection from their neighbours, but in fact, the country had close commercial and religious connections with them. 
• C) Medieval texts have been ‘cherry-picked’ to promote a view of Ethiopia as weak and in need of Europe’s military help with aggressive neighbours, but recent studies reveal it was a well-connected and outward-looking culture. 
• D) Medieval historical sources selectively promoted the narrative that powerful European forces were called on to protect weak African civilisations such as Ethiopia, but this is far from reality. 

Que 3. Which of the following is the correct sequence of goals scored in matches 1, 3, 5 and 7? 

• A) 5, 1, 0, 1
• B) 3, 1, 2, 1
• C) 3, 2, 1, 2
• D) 4, 1, 2, 1 

Check | CAT Exam Syllabus

Que 4. Which of the following statement(s) is/are true?

Statement-1: Amla and Sarita never scored goals in the same match.
Statement-2: Harita and Sarita never scored goals in the same match.

• A) Statement-1 only
• B) Statement-2 only
• C) Both the statements
• D) None of the statements 

Que 5. The average weight of students in a class increases by 600 gm when some new students join the class. If the average weight of the new students is 3 kg more than the average weight of the original students, then the ratio of the number of original students to the number of new students is

• A) 1:4
• B) 1:2
• C) 4:1
• D) 3:1 

Check| CAT Exam Subjects List 2024

Downaload Free QA Sample Questions for CAT Exam

Que 6. The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage. Today, many of the debates about behavioural control in the age of big data echo Cold War-era anxieties about brainwashing, insidious manipulation and repression in the ‘technological society’.

In his book Psychopolitics, Han warns of the sophisticated use of targeted online content, enabling ‘influence to take place on a pre-reflexive level’. On our current trajectory, “freedom will prove to have been merely an interlude.”

The fear is that the digital age has not liberated us but exposed us, by offering up our private lives to machine-learning algorithms that can process masses of personal and behavioural data. In a world of influencers and digital entrepreneurs, it’s not easy to imagine the resurgence of a culture engendered through disconnect and disaffiliation, but concerns over the threat of online targeting, polarisation and big data have inspired recent polemics about the need to rediscover solitude and disconnect.

• A) Rather than freeing us, digital technology is enslaving us by collecting personal information and influencing our online behaviour.
• B) With big data making personal information freely available, the debate on the nature of freedom and the need for privacy has resurfaced.
• C) The role of technology in influencing public behaviour is reminiscent of the manner in which behaviour was manipulated during the Cold War.
• D) The notion of freedom and privacy is at stake in a world where artificial intelligence is capable of influencing behaviour through data gathered online. 

Que 7. The number of integers greater than 2000 that can be formed with the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, using each digit at most once, is

• A) 1440
• B) 1200
• C) 1480
• D) 1420 

Que 8. Let be a quadratic polynomial in x such that f(x)≥0 for all real numbers x. If f(2) = 0 and f( 4) = 6, then f(-2) is equal to

• A) 12
• B) 24
• C) 6
• D) 36 

Know More | How to Prepare for CAT Exam at Home?

Download Free DILR Study Plan by Supergrads

Que 9. The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:

• 1. If I wanted to sit indoors and read or play Sonic the Hedgehog on a red-hot SegaMega Drive, I would often be made to feel guilty about not going outside to “enjoy it while it lasts”.
• 2. My mum, quite reasonably, wanted me and my sister out of the house, in the sun.
• 3. Tales of my mum’s idyllic-sounding childhood in the Sussex countryside, where trees were climbed by 8 am and streams navigated by lunchtime, were passed down to us like folklore.
• 4. To an introverted kid, that felt like a threat - and the feeling has stayed with me. 

Que 10. Consider six distinct natural numbers such that the average of the two smallest numbers is 14, and the average of the two largest numbers is 28. Then, the maximum possible value of the average of these six numbers is

• A) 23
• B) 24
• C) 23.5
• D) 22.5 

Read More | CAT Preparation in 3 Months

Previous Year CAT Exam Question Paper Pattern 

Sections	Total Questions	MCQs	TITA	Maximum Marks
Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC)	24	21	3	72
Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR)	20	14	6	60
Quantitative Aptitude (QA)	22	14	8	66
Total	66	49	17	198

Refer | CAT Exam Verbal Ability Questions with Solutions

Tips for Preparing for CAT Exam Questions in 2024

Here are some tips for preparing for CAT exam questions: 

Solve CAT past year's papers: This will give you a good understanding of the types of questions that are asked in the exam, as well as the difficulty level of the exam. 

Take Mock Tests

CAT Mock tests are a great way to practice under time pressure and get feedback on your performance. Practice a mock test to grab a good hold on your speed and accuracy. This will also help you identify your weak and strong areas.

Focus on Your Weaker Areas

After analysing your performance chart, you will learn about your weak areas. It is time to work on these weak sections; therefore, it is good to take the help of previous year's papers, section-wise mock tests, and much more.

Work on Your Speed and Accuracy

The CAT exam is a timed test, so it's important to work on your speed and accuracy. To improve this, practice mock tests and sample papers under exam conditions.

Develop a Strong Vocabulary

A strong vocabulary will help you understand the passages in the VARC section. Start reading english newspapers, magazines, and journals to improve your vocabulary. Note all the difficult words and find their meanings, synonyms, and antonyms. This will help you chase the VARC section of the CAT exam.

Read More| CAT Exam Study Plan 2024

Download Free DILR Sample Questions for CAT Exam

Conclusion

Practising CAT exam questions can help you understand the difficulty level of the exam. Not only this, it also gives you an idea about the CAT exam pattern and the types of topics asked. Therefore, to stand out from the crowd and score well in your upcoming CAT exam, it is best to have good practice with CAT exam questions covering all three sections. You can work on the mock test series or practice the previous year's CAT exam questions to enhance your speed and accuracy. 

Check | Enroll to SuperGrads CAT Online Coaching