Common Admission Test (CAT) is the MBA entrance exam. After qualifying CAT exam candidates get admission to Indian Institutes of Management (IMMs) and other top MBA college in India.
It is computer based test held in India conducted by Indian Institute of Management for admission to 10 IIMs and more than 100 B – Schools across India. This test is conducted every year by one of the IIMs based on a policy of rotation.
More than 2 lakh candidates appear in CAT exam every year. So, it is considered as one of the top exam in India.
Not only IIMs, many other MBA colleges including IITs, IMT, IMI, JBIMS, SPJIMR Mumbai, XIMB and others also accept CAT scores as their admission criteria.
Candidates are increasing year after year for CAT exam. If you go through the data of candidate’s registration for CAT exam then you will see the high change of CAT applicant every year.
Number of registration in CAT over the year.

Important Points
- Name : Common Admission Test (CAT)
- Aim of Test: For Admission to post graduate management program
- Conducted by: One of the top IIMs (IIM Calcutta in 2018)
- No. of Questions: 100
- Time Limit: 3 hours
- No. of Sections: 3
- CAT exam has Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) with 1/3 negative marking.
- Rest other questions are of non-negative Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) type without negative marking.
- Mode of test in online.
- It is national level exam.
Following are the list of IIMs with their year of establishment.
Name of Institute | Year of Establishment | State located |
IIM Ahmedabad | 1961 | Gujarat |
IIM Calcutta | 1961 | West Bengal |
IIM Bangalore | 1973 | Karnataka |
IIM Lucknow | 1984 | Uttar Pradesh |
IIM Indore | 1996 | Madhya Pradesh |
IIM Kozhikode | 1996 | Kerala |
IIM Shillong | 2007 | Meghalaya |
IIM Raipur | 2010 | Jharkhand |
IIM Rohtak | 2010 | Haryana |
IIM Kashipur | 2011 | Uttarakhand |
IIM Tiruchirappali | 2011 | Tamil Nadu |
IIM Udaipur | 2011 | Rajasthan |
IIM Amritsar | 2015 | Punjab |
IIM Bodh Gaya | 2015 | Bihar |
IIM Nagpur | 2015 | Maharashtra |
IIM Sambalpur | 2015 | Odisha |
IIM Sirmaur | 2015 | Himanchal Pradesh |
IIM Visakha Patnam | 2015 | Andhra Pradesh |
IIM Jammu | 2016 | Jammu and Kashmir |
Eligibility
- Candidates should hold a bachelor's degree in any discipline from a recognized University or Institute.
- For General and OBC percentage score should not less than 50% marks in aggregate or equivalent CGPA.
- For Scheduled Cast (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Persons with Disability (PWD)/Differently Able (DA) the percentage score should be 45% marks.
- The duration for the graduation programme should be minimum 3 years.
- The final year graduation student are also eligible to apply for CAT exam.
- There is no Age Limit for applying or appearing in CAT Exam.
Syllabus
Questions from Quantitative Ability (QA), Verbal Ability (VA) and Reading Comprehensive (RC), Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR).
History
Till 2008, CAT was a paper based test conducted on a single day for all candidates. The University changes the pattern, number of questions and duration several years.
On 1 May 2009, it was announced that CAT would be a computer based test starting from 2009.
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