CAT 2023  was held on Sunday, November 26, 2023. The exam was conducted in three slots that is MORNING Session (8:30-10:30AM), AFTERNOON Session (12:30-2:30PM) and EVENING Session (4:30-6:30PM).

It was a 120 Minutes (Two hours) exam divided into three sections of 40 Minutes each. The first section is VARC (Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension), the second section is DILR (Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning) and the third section is QA (Quantitative Aptitude).

Every correct answer response will add 3 marks and every incorrect answer will deduct 1 mark. There is no negative marking for TITA type questions. You could not change the order of sections. You also could not go back to a previous section or jump the section.

There were no major change in CAT 2023 from CAT2022. In terms of difficulty, 

Section 1 VARC was EASIER than VARC section of CAT2022 / CAT 2021

Section 2 LRDI was roughly SAME as LRDI section of CAT2022 / CAT 2021

Section 3 QA was slightly DIFFICULT than QA section of CAT2022 / CAT 2021

Section 1 (VARC)

VARC Section of all three sessions was AVERAGE and easier as compared to that of CAT 2022 or CAT 2021. 

There were 16 Questions based upon Reading Comprehension {4 RC passage of 4 Questions each}  and 8 questions based upon Verbal Ability including 2 Para Jumbles, 2 Fill in the sentence, 2 Odd one out and 2 Para Summaries.

Section 2 (LRDI)

LRDI Section of all three sessions was AVERAGE - DIFFICULT. There were a total of 4 Sets of 5 Questions Each.

LRDI section was average-difficult-very difficult and roughly of the same level as LRDI section of CAT 2022.

In each session, 0-1 Sets were based upon LR (Logical Reasoning) 0-1 Set was based upon DI (Data Interpretation) and 2-3 sets were LRDI (Beautiful mixture of Data & LOGIC).

Section 3 (QA)

QA Section of all three sessions was AVERAGE-DIFFICULT. There were no easy questions. Around  8-9 questions were average, 5-6 questions were above average and  6-7 questions were very difficult. There were a total of 22 Questions including 7 questions for which answer needed to be typed.

There were around 8-9 Questions of Arithmetic, 6-7 Question of Algebra, 3-4 Questions of Geometry, 2-3 Questions of Numbers and 0-1 Questions of Modern maths.

Around 14-15 Quant Questions were doable but cleverly framed to check your class concepts and common-sense or smartness in approach.

The level of difficulty of QA section of CAT 2023 was slightly higher than CAT 2022.

Detailed Analysis of All 3 Sections:

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)

VARC Section of all three sessions was Average and was same for all 3 slots or slightly decreasing in difficulty level from Morning to Afternoon to Evening.

4 RC’s featured a total of 16 questions with 4 questions each. 

These 16 RC questions were a good mix of categories, a) Which of the following are true EXCEPT, b) Exception based, c) Inference based, d) Critical Reasoning based, e) Fact based

There were no questions on identifying tone of the passage.

Verbal Ability had a total of 8 questions with 4 types: 

a) Para-Summary,  b) Fill in the blanks,  c) Para-Jumbles,   d) Odd one out

No direct questions based upon Vocabulary, Grammar, Logical Continuation & Critical Reasoning were asked.

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation (LRDI)

LRDI Section of all three sessions of CAT 2023 was AVERAGE to DIFFICULT and roughly of the same difficulty level across all 3 slots; Morning to Afternoon to Evening. 

There were a total 20 Questions, 4 Sets of 5 Questions Each.

The level of difficulty of LRDI section was roughly same difficulty level as LRDI section of CAT 2022. All 3 slots of CAT 2023 did not have easy and must do sets similar to LRDI section of CAT 2022.

In each slot, 0-1 Sets were based upon LR (Logical Reasoning) 0-1 Set was based upon DI (Data Interpretation) and 2-3 sets were LRDI (Beautiful mixture of Data & LOGIC).

All LRDI Sets were time consuming and required high level of Logic, Reasoning and high skills of number based Puzzle solving.

Quantitative Aptitude (QA)

QA Section of all three sessions of CAT 2023 was Average to Difficult and slightly increasing in difficulty level from Morning to Afternoon to Evening. There were a total of 22 Questions including 7 questions for which answer needed to be typed.

The level of difficulty of QA section was slightly higher than the difficulty level of QA section of CAT 2022.

The Arithmetic part of QA Section was easier as compared to Algebra part. The questions from Algebra were slightly lengthy, with the approaches being time consuming because of good mix of two class concepts. AGians could see/find all the concepts in QA directly from AnkGanit’s class lectures/notes.

The QA section was dominated by Arithmetic and Algebra.

There were 8-9 questions from Arithmetic including 2-3 Questions from Percentages and PLD, 1 from SI CI, 2-3 from Ration and Time & Work, 1-2 Questions from TSD and 2-3 from Average, Alligation, Mixtures & Replacements. There were 6-7 questions of Algebra including 1 question from Modulus, 1-2 questions from sequence & series, 1 from functions, 1 from LOG and 2-3 from Equations & Quadratic equations. There were 3 Questions of Geometry, 1-2 from Number Theory, 1 Question from Permutation & Combination and 0 from Set Theory. 14-15 Questions are objective type with 4 options and 7-8 TITA questions are there. 

Detailed Analysis was provided to you by Ankit Gaur, Hriday GS and Team AnkGanit.

Ankit Gaur is a CAT Expert and serial CAT Taker from CAT 2007. CAT 2023 was his 17th consecutive CAT. 

He is a B.Sc (Hons.) Mathematics and M.Sc. Maths, Serial XAT topper and CAT 99.99%iler. He has an experience of more than 17 years of teaching Quant & LRDI for CAT.

Hriday GS is an MBA from FMS Delhi batch of 2009. He is also the All India Rank 2 holder of an exam conducted by UPSC. He served government of India as Assistant Commissioner for 18 months.

He has an experience of more than 13 years of teaching Verbal for CAT. He is also an expert trainer for WAT and GDPI.

Click here for CAT2023 Expected Marks vs percentile

CHEERS and LOVE!!

TEAM

AnkGanit