CAT Practice: questions and answers
Short answers about CAT Practice, an unofficial practice site for past CAT papers.
What is CAT Practice?
CAT Practice is a free, unofficial practice site for the Common Admission Test (CAT).
It serves 1,830 questions from 24 past CAT papers, 2017 to 2025, one at a time or as timed papers, and keeps a retry queue of the questions you got wrong.
It runs in the browser and is not affiliated with the IIMs.
Is CAT Practice an official CAT site?
No. CAT Practice is an independent, unofficial study tool.
It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), any CAT convening body, the company that delivers the test, or any coaching institute.
The names “CAT” and “IIM” are used only to identify the exam.
Which CAT papers and years does CAT Practice have?
CAT Practice has 24 past CAT papers, 2017 to 2025: two from 2017, two from 2018, two from 2019, three from 2020, three from 2021, three from 2022, three from 2023, three from 2024 and three from 2025.
Together they hold 1,830 questions: 642 in VARC, 576 in DILR and 612 in QA.
Each paper can be taken whole, as a timed paper, or one section at a time.
Does CAT Practice have solutions?
No. CAT Practice has no worked solutions.
When you answer a question correctly it confirms the answer and names the sources its answer key was checked against; it does not explain how to reach it.
Where do the answer keys on CAT Practice come from? Are they official?
The answer keys on CAT Practice are not official: the IIMs did not supply or check them.
They were compiled by cross-checking publicly available sources, and they can contain errors.
A question whose key is in doubt carries an “Unverified key” badge, and once you have solved a question the sources its key was checked against are named.
Is CAT Practice free?
Yes. CAT Practice is free to use, and every paper and every mode is open to everyone.
There are no advertisements and no tracking. Contributions are voluntary and change nothing about what the site offers.
Do I need an account to use CAT Practice?
No. Everything on CAT Practice works without an account.
An account is optional and free: it saves your progress so that you can pick it up on another device. Accounts are for people aged 18 or over.
What practice modes does CAT Practice have?
CAT Practice has six modes.
- Infinite Practice: One question at a time until your selection is done. Wrong answers return until solved.
- Sectional Timed: One section in a CAT-style console, against the section clock.
- Full Past Paper: A complete past CAT slot, in that year’s order and timing.
- Retry Queue Only: Only the questions you got wrong and have not solved yet.
- Custom Drill: A set number of questions, with an optional per-question cap.
- Speed Drill: Each question capped at its section benchmark; overruns are flagged.
How does CAT Practice work out the simulated score?
CAT Practice adds up raw marks with the CAT marking scheme: a multiple-choice (MCQ) question scores +3 for a correct answer, −1 for a wrong one and 0 for a question left unanswered, and a type-in-the-answer (TITA) question scores +3 for a correct answer, 0 for a wrong one and 0 for a question left unanswered. The scheme is the same for every paper on the site, 2017 to 2025.
A timed paper is scored when you submit it. The simulated score in Statistics counts only your first attempt at each question.
These are raw marks, not a scaled score or a percentile, and they do not predict an exam result or admission.
How does the retry queue on CAT Practice work?
A question you answer wrongly on CAT Practice goes into your retry queue, and its answer stays hidden until you solve it yourself.
In practice it comes back after 3 to 5 other questions (a setting you can change), and keeps coming back until you get it right. Wrong answers from a timed paper join the same queue.
Retry Queue Only mode serves just those questions. After 3 wrong attempts at a question you can dispute its answer key, which takes it out of the queue.
What data does CAT Practice store, and where?
Everything you do on CAT Practice is stored in your own browser, on your own device: your answers and the time you took, your sessions and timed papers, your retry queue, the questions you have disputed, hidden or bookmarked, your notes, and your goals and settings.
Without an account none of it is sent anywhere.
If you create an account, which is optional, your email address and a copy of your progress are held with Supabase, the service provider that hosts the site’s database and sign-in, in Mumbai, India, so that you can pick your progress up on another device. Deleting the account deletes both.
There are no advertisements and no analytics, and the app sets no cookies.
How do I report an error on CAT Practice, or ask for content to be removed?
To report an error on CAT Practice, or to ask for content to be removed, write to sriram.cat.exam@gmail.com. Say which content you mean (the paper, the passage or the question) and the basis of your request.
If you own the rights in the content and ask for it to be removed, it is removed. A reported error or missing credit is checked, and the content is corrected where the report is right.
Messages are normally acted on within 7 days.