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SET 2025 Question Paper: Download PDF + Topic-Wise & Difficulty Analysis
July 28, 2026
Overview: Looking for the SET 2025 question paper? Symbiosis typically doesn’t publish the official paper, so the PDFs available online are memory-based. On this page, you can download slot-wise memory-based SET question paper 2025 PDFs and see the exact pattern, section-wise topics, difficulty, and good attempt/score benchmarks.
Quick Answer
The SET 2025 question paper carried 60 questions for 60 marks in 60 minutes across
- General English (16)
- Quantitative Aptitude (16)
- General Awareness (16)
- Analytical & Logical Reasoning (12), with no negative marking.
Overall difficulty was easy to moderate. A good attempt was 45–50 questions with a target score of 41+.
| Key Highlight | Details |
|---|---|
| Official Paper | Symbiosis does not release the official SET 2025 question paper. Available PDFs are memory-based and unofficial. |
| Exam Dates | SET 2025 was held on 5 May and 11 May 2025 and was rated easy to moderate. |
| Most Important Section | General Awareness was the highest-scoring and deciding section. |
| Good Attempts | 45–50 attempts with 41+ marks were considered a good performance. |
| Time Management | Most candidates finished on time; accuracy mattered more than speed. |
| Preparation Value | The SET 2025 exam question paper remains useful for practice due to the unchanged exam pattern. |
When Was the SET 2025 Exam Held?
Two operational notes that rarely make it into analysis pages. First, Test 1 ran across roughly 80 cities an expansion from about 76 the previous year.
Second, and more importantly, ten cities had the second slot postponed, which meant a subset of candidates sat the paper on a different date entirely.
If you are comparing peer scores from SET 2025, that fragmentation matters.
| Event | Date |
| Registration closed | 12 April 2025 |
| Admit card Test 1 | 25 April 2025 |
| Admit card Test 2 | 30 April 2025 |
| SET 2025 Test 1 | 5 May 2025, 9:00–10:00 AM |
| SET 2025 Test 2 | 11 May 2025, 9:00–10:00 AM |
| Result | Late May 2025 |
| Event | Date |
| Registration closed | 12 April 2025 |
| Admit card Test 1 | 25 April 2025 |
| Admit card Test 2 | 30 April 2025 |
| SET 2025 Test 1 | 5 May 2025, 9:00–10:00 AM |
| Event | Date |
| Registration closed | 12 April 2025 |
| Admit card Test 1 | 25 April 2025 |
| Admit card Test 2 | 30 April 2025 |
| SET 2025 Test 1 | 5 May 2025, 9:00–10:00 AM |
| SET 2025 Test 2 | 11 May 2025, 9:00–10:00 AM |
| Result | Late May 2025 |
SET 2025 Test 2 11 May 2025, 9:00–10:00 AM Result Late May 2025
What Was the SET 2025 Question Paper Pattern?
The SET 2025 question paper followed the same structure Symbiosis has used consistently, and the same one carried forward into 2026 which is precisely why practising on this paper still transfers.
Section-Wise Question and Mark Distribution
| Section | Questions | Marks | Weightage |
| General English | 16 | 16 | 26.7% |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 16 | 16 | 26.7% |
| General Awareness | 16 | 16 | 26.7% |
| Analytical & Logical Reasoning | 12 | 12 | 20% |
| Total | 60 | 60 | 100% |
All questions were objective multiple-choice. All four sections were compulsory. There were no sectional time limits you could move freely across the paper for the full hour. Full details are on our SET exam pattern page.
Was There Negative Marking in SET 2025?
No. The SET 2025 question paper awarded +1 for a correct answer and deducted nothing for a wrong one.
This single rule should reshape how you approach the paper. With no penalty, leaving a question blank is strictly worse than guessing.
Yet in every SET cycle a meaningful number of candidates submit with unattempted questions still on screen, a self-inflicted loss.
The floor for attempts in SET is 60, always. The only real question is how many of those 60 you attempt with reasoning versus how many you eliminate down to a coin flip in the final ninety seconds.
How Difficult Was the SET 2025 Question Paper?
Overall, the SET 2025 question paper was easy to moderate, with General Awareness as the one section that genuinely separated candidates.
Cross-Source Difficulty Verdict
Most pages report a single coaching institute's verdict. Below is what three independent analyses actually said, reconciled:
| Section | (Slot 1) | (Slot 2) | Reconciled verdict |
| General English | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Quantitative Aptitude | Easy to Moderate | Easy to Moderate | Easy to Moderate |
| General Awareness | Moderate | Easy to Moderate | Moderate |
| Analytical & Logical Reasoning | Easy | Easy | Easy |
| Overall | Easy to Moderate | Easy to Moderate | Easy to Moderate |
The consensus is tight on three of four sections.
Where analyses diverge, they diverge on English and Reasoning, the two sections everyone agrees were the easiest.
Nobody disputed that General Awareness was the hardest. That agreement is the actionable finding.
Why the Sources Disagree on General English
Because English difficulty in SET is a function of vocabulary exposure rather than technique, and reviewers assess it against different baselines.
The English section of the SET question paper 2025 was grammar-and-vocabulary heavy: fill-in-the-blanks, error spotting, idioms, synonyms and antonyms, plus a single poem-based question.
A reviewer measuring against CAT-style reading comprehension will call that easy. A reviewer measuring against a Class 12 board English paper will call it moderate, because idioms and one-word substitutions reward reading breadth that many candidates simply have not built.
Practical translation: if your vocabulary is strong, SET English is close to free marks. If it isn't, no amount of exam-day strategy rescues it.
Start there. Our SET English question papers collection is the fastest way to test which camp you fall into.
Was Slot 2 Harder Than Slot 1?
Marginally, and not enough to matter. Both versions of the SET 2025 question paper sat within the same difficulty band.
Slot 2 (11 May) carried a few lengthier questions because of convoluted phrasing rather than genuine conceptual difficulty- a common SET signature.
Slot 1 (5 May) was rated slightly easier in English, with reviewers noting it was easier than the corresponding 2024 section. Both slots landed at the same overall verdict.
Because Symbiosis lets you sit both slots and counts the higher score, slot-to-slot variation is largely neutralised by design.
What Was a Good Attempt and Good Score in the SET 2025 Question Paper?
This is the number most pages bury. Two independent analyses converged on effectively the same benchmark, which makes it unusually trustworthy.
Sectional Attempt Benchmarks
| Section | Questions | Good attempt |
| General English | 16 | 12+ |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 16 | 12+ |
| General Awareness | 16 | 12+ |
| Analytical & Logical Reasoning | 12 | 10+ |
| Total | 60 | 45–50 |
What Score Should You Target?
A good attempt in the SET 2025 question paper was 45–50 questions, and a good score was 41 or above.
Sit with the arithmetic for a moment, because it reframes the exam. Scoring 41 from 48 attempts requires roughly 85% accuracy.
SET does not reward volume with no negative marking; everyone reaches 60 attempts eventually. SET rewards the accuracy of the 45–50 you answer deliberately.
This is the mental shift most candidates preparing for the SET 2025 question paper make too late.
Which Topics Appeared in the SET 2025 Question Paper?
The tables below merge topic-wise reports on the SET question paper 2025 from both slots and all three sources. Ranges reflect slot-to-slot variation.
Quantitative Aptitude Topics
| Topic | Questions (range) |
| Percentages, Profit, Loss & Discount | 2–3 |
| Ratio, Mixture & Alligation | 1–3 |
| Permutation, Combination & Probability | 2–3 |
| Algebra (equations, logarithms) | 2 |
| Series & Progressions (AP/GP) | 1–2 |
| Geometry & Coordinate Geometry | 1–2 |
| Number System (LCM, HCF) | 1–2 |
| Averages | 1–2 |
| Time & Work | 1 |
| Time, Speed & Distance | 1 |
| Simple & Compound Interest | 1 |
| Data Interpretation | 1 |
Download Free Quantitative Ability Topic-Wise PDFs:
| Topic | Download Link |
|---|---|
| Basic Algebra & Polynomials | |
| Combination | |
| Percentage | |
| Profit, Loss & Discount | |
| Ratio, Proportion, Variation & Partnership | |
| Average, Mixture & Alligation | |
| Simple & Compound Interest | |
| Time, Work, Pipes & Cisterns, Chain Rule | |
| Surds, Indices & Logarithms | |
| Set Theory | |
| Functions & Graphs | |
| Linear & Quadratic Equations | |
| Geometry & Mensuration | |
| Inequalities & Modulus | |
| Coordinate Geometry & Trigonometry | |
| Permutation & Combination | |
| Probability | |
| Progression (AP, GP, HP) | |
| Work & Time | |
| Matrices | |
| Miscellaneous Topics | |
| Basic Algebra – Linear Equations | |
| Fundamental Principle of Counting | |
| Geometry – Circles | |
| Logarithm | |
| Mean, Mode & Median | |
| Mensuration (2D & 3D) | |
| Number System & Factors | |
| Number Theory | |
| Time, Speed & Distance (Boats, Streams, Linear Motion) |
Read the shape of that table, not just the rows. Arithmetic, percentages, profit and loss, ratio, mixtures, interest, time-based problems, accounts for roughly half the section.
Coordinate geometry and logarithms make regular appearances and are the two topics BBA aspirants most often skip on the assumption that SET stays elementary.
Every topic here sits inside Class 11–12 mathematics; none of it requires advanced preparation. Our SET exam notes map to exactly this distribution.
General English Topics
| Topic | Questions (range) |
| Fill in the blanks (articles, subject-verb agreement, tenses) | 3–5 |
| Synonyms & Antonyms | 1–3 |
| Idioms & Phrases | 2–3 |
| Error Spotting | 2–3 |
| Sentence Correction & Grammar | 2–3 |
| Figures of Speech | up to 3 |
| One-Word Substitution & Proverbs | 1–2 |
| Question Tags & Compound Words | up to 2 |
| Poem-based comprehension | 1 |
Download Free Verbal Ability Topic-Wise PDFs:
| Topic | Download Link |
|---|---|
| Vocabulary | |
| Idioms and Phrases | |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Error Spotting | |
| Sentence Improvement | |
| Grammar-Based Fill in the Blanks | |
| Narration and Voice | |
| Reading Comprehension | |
| Para Completion | |
| Para Jumbles | |
| Listening Transcript | |
| Antonyms | |
| One Word Substitution | |
| Direct & Indirect Speech | |
| Synonyms | |
| Punctuations | |
| Tenses | |
| Spelling Test | |
| Cloze Test | |
| Sentence Arrangement / Para Jumbler |
Notice what is missing from the Symbiosis SET 2025 question paper: there was no long reading-comprehension passage. A single poem extract carried one question.
That is a meaningful difference from most other BBA entrance papers, and it changes how you prepare; vocabulary and grammar drilling beats passage practice for SET specifically.
Analytical and Logical Reasoning Topics
| Topic | Questions (range) |
| Critical Reasoning (statement-conclusion, cause & effect, strong/weak arguments, assumptions, course of action) | 2–5 |
| Coding-Decoding | 1–2 |
| Blood Relations | 1–2 |
| Series Completion | 1–2 |
| Seating Arrangements | 1–2 |
| Clocks | 1 |
| Calendars | 1 |
| Dice (opened net) | 1 |
IPMAT 2027 Study Material: Download Free Logical Reasoning Topic-Wise PDFs:
| Topic | Download Link |
|---|---|
| Clock and Calendars | |
| Syllogism | |
| Critical Reasoning | |
| Analogy and Classification | |
| Analytical Puzzles | |
| Number and Letter Series | |
| Blood Relation and Direction & Distance | |
| Coding and Decoding | |
| Non-Verbal Reasoning | |
| Verbal Reasoning | |
| Seating Arrangement | |
| Dice and Cube | |
| Matching Type | |
| Mathematical Operations | |
| Counting Figures and Venn Diagrams | |
| Data Arrangement and Interpretation |
General Awareness Topics
The General Awareness section in the SET 2025 Question Paper was more static GK-oriented than current affairs, making it advantageous for candidates with strong fundamentals in history, polity, geography, economics, and international organisations.
Current affairs questions primarily focused on major national and international events from 2024–2025.
| Category | Topics/Questions Observed in the SET 2025 Question Paper |
|---|---|
| Ancient History | Chandragupta Maurya |
| Medieval History | Tughlaq Dynasty (2 questions) |
| Modern History | Important dates from the Indian Freedom Struggle |
| Polity | Election Commission of India, Lok Sabha seat composition |
| Economics | Term for expenditure exceeding revenue (Fiscal Deficit) |
| Environmental Science | Identification of non-renewable energy sources |
| Geography | Country nearest to the Bermuda Triangle |
| International Organizations | United Nations-related questions, Full form of BRICS |
| Institutional Awareness | Organization responsible for conferring the National Film Awards |
| Current Affairs | December 2024 World Chess Championship |
| Current Affairs | 2024 United States Presidential Election |
| Current Affairs | Indian athlete winning consecutive medals at the Paris Olympics |
| Current Affairs | Recent ISRO space mission/launch |
| Current Affairs | T20 century scored by the Indian women's cricket captain |
| Current Affairs | Parentage of a noted Indian classical musician |
What Were the Cut-Offs After the SET 2025 Question Paper?
An important caveat before the numbers: the cut-offs quoted alongside the SET 2025 question paper are coaching-institute estimates, not official figures.
Symbiosis releases programme-wise merit lists and category-wise cut-offs through the candidate login portal after registration and fee payment. Treat the figures below as directional bands.
| Institute | SET 2025 cut-off |
| SCMS Pune | 45–50 |
| SCMS Noida | 42–50 |
| SCMS Bengaluru | 40–45 |
| SCMS Hyderabad | 40–45 |
| SCMS Nagpur | 38+ |
Two things to read from this. First, the entire band from the least to most competitive campus spans roughly twelve marks so a handful of questions genuinely changes which campus you enter.
Second, the good-score benchmark of 41+ sits comfortably above the Nagpur, Hyderabad and Bengaluru bands but at the edge of Pune's. If SCMS Pune is your goal, the target is not 41 it is closer to 48.
Also remember that the SET score is not the whole selection. Candidates progress to a personal interaction and written ability assessment stage, and both carry weight in the final call. Our guide to courses offered through SET maps which programmes sit at which campus.
How Should You Treat Memory-Based Papers?
Use them for pattern intelligence, not score prediction.
A memory-based Symbiosis SET question paper 2025 will tell you reliably that coordinate geometry appeared, that critical reasoning carried real weight, and that General Awareness leaned heavily static.
It will not tell you your likely SET score, because the recalled questions skew towards the ones candidates found memorable- usually the harder or more unusual ones. Solving a memory-based set and scoring 30/60 does not mean you would have scored 30 in the hall.
Read the topic distribution in any SET question paper 2025 reconstruction carefully. Treat the score casually.
How Does the SET 2025 Question Paper Compare With Other Years?
| Parameter | SET 2024 | SET 2025 | SET 2026 |
| Sections | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Questions / Marks | 60 / 60 | 60 / 60 | 60 / 60 |
| Duration | 60 minutes | 60 minutes | 60 minutes |
| Negative marking | None | None | None |
| Mode | CBT | CBT | CBT |
| Test dates | May | 5 & 11 May | 2 & 10 May |
| Test cities | ~76 | ~80 | ~68 |
| Overall difficulty | Easy to moderate | Easy to moderate | Refer to current-cycle analysis |
The headline finding: the SET pattern has not moved in three cycles. The SET 2025 question paper sits in the middle of that unbroken run.
Section count, question count, marking scheme, duration and mode are identical across 2024, 2025 and 2026. Reviewers explicitly noted that the 2025 English section tracked 2024's difficulty closely.
That stability is the whole argument for using older papers.
When a pattern is this static, a two-year-old paper is not stale material it is a valid rehearsal. Compare this with exams that revise their structure annually, where anything older than one cycle becomes actively misleading.
Our year-on-year SET exam analysis hub tracks these shifts as they happen.
Which Memory-Based Questions Were Reported From the SET 2025 Question Paper?
Six specimen questions from the SET question paper 2025 were recalled with enough specificity to be instructive.
Note that these were reported across sections; some published analyses group them all under General Awareness, which is a formatting error worth ignoring.
Quantitative and Reasoning Specimens
1. The 6th and 16th terms of a series were given; the 21st term had to be found.
Method: Don't solve for the first term. The gap between the 6th and 16th terms spans ten common differences, so d = (a₁₆ − a₆) ÷ 10. Then step forward five differences from the 16th term: a₂₁ = a₁₆ + 5d. Two operations, no simultaneous equations. This shortcut generalises to every "given two terms, find a third" AP question you will ever see.
2. A table of figures across two years; percentage growth had to be computed.
Method: Growth = (increase ÷ original) × 100, with the earlier year always as the base. The classic error is dividing by the later figure. Read the question stem twice to confirm whether it asks for growth or for the ratio.
3. Direct application of the midpoint formula.
Method: Midpoint = ((x₁+x₂)/2, (y₁+y₂)/2). A free mark for anyone who has revised the formula sheet, and a lost mark for anyone who assumed SET wouldn't test coordinate geometry.
4. If 1 January is a Thursday, what day is 1 June?
Method: Count days from 1 January to 1 June 31 + 28 + 31 + 30 + 31 = 151 in a non-leap year. Then 151 ÷ 7 leaves a remainder of 4, so move four days forward from Thursday:
Monday. In a leap year the count is 152, the remainder is 5, and the answer shifts to Tuesday.
Since the question specified no year, the non-leap convention applies. This is exactly the kind of question where candidates lose a mark not to difficulty but to a careless February.
English and General Awareness Specimens
Antonyms. The antonym of equivocal was tested. Equivocal means deliberately ambiguous or open to more than one interpretation; its antonym is unequivocal: clear, explicit, unambiguous.
Idioms. Crying over spilt milk: regretting something already done and beyond repair.
Two observations from these two items. Both are exactly the register SET's English section operates in: standard, widely-used vocabulary rather than obscure words. And both are learnable in advance. There is no technique to substitute for having met the word before, which is why vocabulary work should start in Class 11, not in April.
Is the SET 2025 Question Paper Still Worth Solving?
Yes the SET exam 2025 question paper is still worth solving, with one clear condition.
Decision Framework: Should You Solve It?
| Your situation | Verdict | Why |
| Preparing for SET 2027, six months or more out | Solve it early, untimed | Use it as a syllabus map to find gaps while you still have time to close them |
| Preparing for SET 2027, inside two months | Solve it timed, as a full mock | Pattern identical to the current cycle; ideal rehearsal conditions |
| Sat SET 2026, preparing to reattempt | Solve it, then compare section-wise against your 2026 scorecard | Two data points on the same pattern reveal whether a weakness is real or was a one-off |
| Still deciding between SET, NPAT and CUET | Skim the topic tables, don't solve it yet | Choose your exam first; solving papers for an exam you may not sit wastes your best diagnostic material |
| Only two weeks left before your exam | Solve it, but the most recent paper first | Sequence matters the freshest paper gives the truest read on current difficulty |
The condition: solve it before you read the analysis in detail. Once you have read that critical reasoning carried up to five questions and that GA leaned static, you cannot un-know it, and the paper's diagnostic value collapses. Attempt first. Analyse second.
Before you attempt it, confirm you actually qualify; our SET exam eligibility page covers the Class 12 requirements and the programme-wise conditions.
What Mistakes Do Students Make With SET Previous Year Papers?
-
Treating a memory-based SET 2025 question paper as a reliable score predictor. Recalled questions over-represent the difficult and unusual ones. Your score on a reconstruction is not a forecast.
-
Reading the analysis before attempting the paper. The single most expensive mistake on this page. Knowing the topic distribution in advance turns a diagnostic into a comprehension exercise.
-
Leaving questions blank. In an exam with no negative marking, an unattempted question is a mark voluntarily surrendered. Yet it happens in every cycle.
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Preparing General Awareness from current affairs alone. SET 2025 leaned static history, polity, geography, and organisations. A candidate who prepared only the last three months of headlines was systematically underprepared for more than half the section.
-
Assuming Quant stays elementary. Coordinate geometry, logarithms, permutations and probability all appeared. These sit within the Class 11–12 syllabus but outside the comfort zone of a student who assumed SET tests only arithmetic.
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Solving without timing, then treating the score as real. An untimed attempt measures knowledge. A timed attempt measures readiness. Both are useful; conflating them is not.
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Only sitting one slot. Symbiosis permits both dates and counts the higher score. Skipping the second attempt discards a free option. Register for both, and review the SET exam day instructions before each.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I download the official SET 2025 question paper PDF?
How many questions were in the SET 2025 question paper?
Was there negative marking in the SET 2025 question paper?
What was the overall difficulty level of SET 2025?
Which was the most difficult section in SET 2025?
What is a good score in SET 2025?
Were both SET 2025 slots equally difficult?
Lalita Vishwakarma
Content Writer
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