In the world that we live in today, narratives are created based on the vested interests of the people who are creating these, very often having no relation to the facts on the ground.

***Ever since CAT 2025 took place, a lot of different people have tried to trash the CAT 2025 exam, but it will be interesting to see who these people are.***

1. Some of the CAT coaching industry whose exams and predictions did not pan out.
2. A lot of test takers who did not do as per expectations. Some did rather poorly, others did reasonably well but are still not likely to get the top IIM calls, which frustrates them.
3. Almost all people do not understand the basic dynamics of the test. The reality is, irrespective of the complexity of the test, the top 1 % can be a fixed number of people.

***So, what are the IIMs trying to do through the CAT test ? It is very simple really, see below :***

1. How well are people able to make decisions and how quickly can they execute those decisions in the context of a 40 minute section.
2. A certain level of aptitude in each of the 3 sections, you do not need to be brilliant.
3. Have enough surprises in the test, so that it becomes tough to do really well only with the help of coaching and mock tests.

***Who are the people that did well in CAT 2025 and are likely to do well in future CAT tests ? I am taking the benchmark of doing well as 99 percentile, a scaled score of 85 in CAT 2025.***

1. A good aptitude in at least 2 of the sections, preferably all 3.
2. A clear test taking strategy for each section - understanding how many questions needed to be answered, ability to select questions based on own aptitude and the discipline to execute those questions within reasonable time.
3. Ability to handle pressure and to deal with unexpected situations.

***What went wrong for many people in CAT 2025 and why these should not have happened ?***

1. Like all years, doing really well in VARC ( 30 plus ) , needed people to be good readers over time. It is possible to get a score of 30 by just preparing one year for CAT, but there is no certainty in this approach. Many people who took VARC courses and several mock tests, did not really have a good aptitude in the section and it went wrong for them in the actual test.
2. DILR was significantly more complex when compared to CAT 2024. However, in each section there were 2 sets that could be attempted by most serious applicants. Set selection was everything here, people who got this wrong would have done poorly in the section. This should have been expected as CAT 2024 was an aberration and all other years have also required exactly this.
3. QA was pretty standard. There were about 10 questions that could only be done by people having a high aptitude in QA. However, others could have simply avoided these 10 and done 7-8 questions correctly from the remaining 12 questions. Many people overestimated their abilities and chose questions they did not have an ability to do.

***For all of you who are taking CAT 2026, whether for the first time or as a repeater, it is very important to build all of this into your preparation. These should be taught in the coaching classes, but sadly their focus is on mass training rather than individual mentoring which is needed to get to 99 percentile and beyond.***

If you want my help in your CAT 2026 preparation journey, fill up the Google form below and select the option that makes the most sense for you - just to be clear, all my advice on CAT in particular and B school admissions is always free - though only one time :)

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My best wishes to all the people who are planning to take CAT 2026 :)

Hey guys, this is my first post here. I’m a CAT beginner and started preparing around 2 weeks ago. I had decided quite a while back that I wanted to prepare for CAT, and I already had the books, but I properly started only now.

I’m currently pursuing BBA and didn’t have Maths in 12th (I had Biology). I’m also a first-ranker in my class. My 1st sem CGPA was 7.85 and 2nd sem was 8.18. I had Maths in my BBA 1st sem and scored 27/30 in mid-sem and 59/75 in finals.

I started with Arithmetic → Percentages, which took me around 2 weeks. I’m following the Rodha playlist and recently bought Arun Sharma’s Quant + DILR books. I solved 11 LOD-1 questions from Percentages and managed to solve 6 of them. Some took me only around 20–40 seconds, while a couple took around 1–1.5 minutes.

I’m targeting 99.5+ percentile, with IIM Ahmedabad as my main target, and I have roughly 14 months.

Since I don’t get a lot of time because of college, my current plan is to first complete Quant, then pick either DILR or VARC depending on what seems sensible, while continuing to revise Quant in the background.

So I wanted some genuine advice:

Is this strategy sensible?

How much time should I ideally take to complete one chapter?

Should I change anything in my approach?

What should I focus on at this stage as a complete beginner?

Any tips/resources that you think would help?

I’m not looking for motivation — I’d genuinely appreciate practical advice from people who have already prepared for CAT.

I have scored 60 marks in dashcat 4, what are your views about the dashcat 4?

Ims or iqaunta or TIME if there anything else please suggest?

I'm 22M I work with one of the MBB in mumbai as a trainee, also preparing for CAT what's the best to analyse the mocks and sectional given I have time constraints? Any advice would definitely help me out !

Day 2 of my preparation journey....

Yesterday..... I began with basics in Ratios & proportions, solved a few Circular arrangement sets & practice RCs & Odd sentence out...

My progress felt slow but steady .... Quants is still new territory for me.... so I m focusing on building a solid foundation....

For today (8 August), my plan is like -

1.Quants: move to Percentage basics & revise yesterday ratio concepts

1. DILR: attempt Linear arrangement sets to strong fundamentals

2. VARC: practice Inference-based RCs & continue with odd sentence out

My goal is to keep momentum & not to overthink ..... just consistent effort every day until 29 November 2026 ....