The CAT is conducted to help best business schools and IIMs to select eligible candidates to offer management programs. Thousands of students must participate in the CAT exam every year and the competition level of the exam is increasing with every year. Students participating in the CAT 2025 exam may wonder, will the CAT exam be tougher this year? To find out the same, candidates can refer to this article and go through the last 5 year paper analysis to check increasing difficulty level patterns.
This dilemma is due to the overall shift in the nature of questions in the test, the varying levels of difficulty in the sections, and increased competition among the test-takers. Some years are breezy when it comes to questions, while others have strangely tough questions or extremely long reading comprehension passages, particularly in the Verbal Ability and Data Interpretation sections. Furthermore, the process of normalization and the percentile-based scores introduce another factor.
These factors lead students to feel that the CAT is becoming a more uncertain and unpredictable test. However, whether this change necessarily implies that the test is becoming harder or simply represents changing methods and requirements is still under discussion. This article considers the question in depth, looking at historical trends, what the experts have to say, and student experience.
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Factors Affecting CAT 2025 Rising Difficulty Level
The following factors contribute to the increasing difficulty level of CAT examination.
- Changing Exam Pattern
- Increased Competition
- Evolving Question Complexity
- Sectional Time Limits
- Normalization & Percentile System
- High Cut-offs & Profile Weightage
Last 5 Year CAT Exam Analysis (2020–2024)
To check out the increasing difficulty of the CAT examination with every upcoming year, students may refer to the following table.
Year | Total Questions(VARC / DILR / QA) | Overall Difficulty | Quantitative Aptitude (QA) Focus | Exam Highlights |
2020 | 76 (26 / 24 / 26) | Moderate to Tough | Balanced focus on Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry | Increased question count post-COVID changes; VARC lengthy; QA moderately tricky |
2021 | 66 (24 / 20 / 22) | Moderate to Difficult | Heavy arithmetic presence; algebra was manageable | Pattern streamlined; DILR emerged as the most challenging section |
2022 | 66 (24 / 20 / 22) | Moderate | Arithmetic steady; algebra gained weight; geometry moderate | No surprises in pattern; time management key; consistent difficulty across sections |
2023 | 66 (24 / 20 / 22) | Moderate to Difficult | Shift towards logic-heavy algebra & geometry; QA most difficult in recent years | VARC vocabulary-driven; DILR continued to be a time sink |
2024 | 68 (24 / 22 / 22) | Moderate to Difficult | Rise in Arithmetic complexity; Geometry & Algebra prominent | Slight question hike; mix of conceptual and practice-based sets; few repeated themes |
CAT 2025 Exam Pattern
The official CAT exam pattern for 2025 has not been released yet. The exam pattern is typically announced along with the official notification, which is expected around the end of July. The following table contains the expected CAT exam pattern 2025 and marking scheme as well.
Section | No. of Questions | Time Limit | Question Types | Marking Scheme |
Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) | 24 | 40 minutes | MCQs & TITA | 3 marks for correct, 1 mark deducted for wrong MCQ, no negative marking for TITA |
Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning (DILR) | 22 | 40 minutes | MCQs & TITA | 3 marks for correct, 1 mark deducted for wrong MCQ, no negative marking for TITA |
Quantitative Ability (QA) | 22 | 40 minutes | MCQs & TITA | 3 marks for correct, 1 mark deducted for wrong MCQ, no negative marking for TITA |
Total | 68 | 120 minutes | MCQs & TITA in all sections | |
Note: As the CAT exam difficulty may vary from last year, students must improve their preparation strategies and modify the same as per the requirement. Students are advised to not rely on a particular CAT preparation plan and adapt new learning methods to improve their overall preparation.
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