By: Mr. Ramnath Kanakadandi, Sr. Course Director at T.I.M.E
With the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2025 scheduled to be conducted on November 30, 2025, students would be looking for ways to structure their preparation better so that they can enter the last phase of their preparation with more confidence.
Let us look at each of the areas in CAT 2025 and discuss how this can be done in the coming months.
Verbal Ability:
Reading Comprehension: CAT has traditionally been an RC-centric paper for English. A few critical factors in RC preparation:
- Reading on diverse topics
- Target all direct questions followed by partially inferential questions.
- During the Test: Ideally, not more than 10 minutes are to be spent per passage, and it is to be ensured that all passages are looked at
Verbal Ability: This includes Para formation and Para summary questions. The following are a few approaches to answer these questions:
- Identify the introductory statement (this statement would tell us what the paragraph is all about)
- Then identify links that would connect the two sentences. These are called connectives. These connectives can be conjunctions (but, and) or can be content connectives like cause–effect, generic to specific, etc.
Remember that there are no shortcuts to learning a language. Practice is the key to success in this section. Spend at least an hour daily on regular reading and another 30 minutes reading passages from various online sources.
Quantitative Ability:
List out the areas/topics to focus on: As the sections are timed individually, selective preparation is very risky, as one may end up getting questions from the areas that he/she has left out of preparation. Therefore, till the last 3-4 weeks running up to the exam, the students should focus on getting better at all the topics in Quant. Then the focus should be shifted to concentrating on specific areas that would give them the maximum return for their time. A two-pronged approach needs to be adopted for this
- Mock-CAT Performance Analysis: Students should have a clear understanding of their comfort level in all Quant topics. Mock-CAT performances should be analysed at a topic level. The areas where the students have been scoring below par consistently and the areas where the scores have been fluctuating should be the areas of focus.
- Previous CAT paper analysis: The areas that have been consistently contributing to the CAT exam over the years should be identified, and attention should be given to them.
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Follow these simple steps while preparing:
- Understand the basic concepts of the selected topic thoroughly
- Write down all the formulae and concepts related to the topic on a chart to use as a ready reckoner
- Ensure that you know when a particular formula is to be used
- Solve at least 30-40 questions (CAT level) from the topic
Logical Ability
The questions in Logic can be broadly said to come from three areas: Puzzles, Venn Diagrams and Cubes, and Deductions and Logical Connectives.
Other question types have not been appearing of late. Working out problems from the Study Material Booklets is often the best way to prepare for the different varieties of Questions that appear in CAT. Puzzle books like those by Shakuntala Devi, George Summers, etc., provide exposure to high-level logic puzzles and the approaches to tackle them.
The often-repeated word “Practice” is the key to cracking the questions based on logic & reasoning. The students should put in as much time as possible in practicing questions of different types, both online and on paper.
Data Interpretation:
The skills required to crack questions in DI are:
1. Ability to analyse and understand difficult/complicated data
This is a skill that one can acquire through regular practice. The practice needs to involve questions of various difficulty levels and types. One approach would be to start solving all the DI sets from your study material. Once this is done, it is time to move online using ‘Online Practice Tests’.
2. Ability to do calculations quickly
The speed of calculations is where the students should focus, along with practicing different sets. Acquiring this skill is often easier said than done, as it is difficult to get over the old habits of scribbling numbers on paper, even for simple additions.
The point to be kept in mind when students practice sets, as mentioned above, is that they should not only focus on the approach but should also work out the answers. This should be done in a timely manner. The advantage of solving questions under a time constraint would be that the students would be forced to increase their speed of calculation.
Time management
With the sections being individually timed, the test takers have been relieved from a big part of the responsibility of time management across sections. However, one needs to ensure that not too much time is spent on any single question. This makes the selection of questions to attempt a very important factor. One also needs to have a cut-off time to ensure that no question gets too much time.
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The expert advises that consistent practice, careful topic selection, and regular analysis of mock tests can help candidates approach CAT 2025 with greater confidence. As the exam on November 30 draws closer, structured preparation across all three sections—VARC, DILR, and Quant—along with smart time management, will play a crucial role in maximizing performance.
