Mistakes to Avoid in CAT 2025, Do’s & Don’ts For The Exam Day

Every year, 2-3+ lakhs of students register for the CAT exam. Moreover, nearly 2.3-2.7 lakhs students appear to take the CAT at exam halls. Of this, approximately 10,000 – 30,000 students clear the CAT exam. Not only to IIMs but CAT cut-offs could also be a gateway to many leading management and business schools in India. However, long story short, these number highlights the competition for the CAT exam. Moreover, IIMs collectively offer 9,000 to 10,000 seats for CAT aspirants. 20,000 – 30,000 seats is a combined approximate at other top B-schools in India.

This means 80-90% of CAT aspirants do not make it through the CAT exam scores to secure a seat at a top-ranked college. These facts often become a reason for enhanced stress and anxiety levels along with mental and exam pressure, leading to making many common exam mistakes. Moreover, there could be other mistakes, which could be a result of negligence or carelessness. With this blog, we shall uncover the top 10 mistakes to avoid in CAT 2025 exam. Let us swiftly dive in to explore.

CAT 2025 Overview: The Exam Highlights

Common Aptitude Test, popularly known as the CAT exam, is a gateway to admission to prestigious IIMs and top business schools in India. Check out the details of the CAT 2025 entrance exam at a glance.

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Top 8 Mistakes to Avoid in CAT Exam 2025

Explore the top and most common mistakes to avoid in CAT exam 2025. Keep them in mind to increase the possibilities of qualifying for the CAT exam. Take a look:

Spending Too Much Time on One Question

The CAT exam contains three sections: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Quantitative Aptitude (QA), and Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR). Each section is allotted a time of 40 minutes. In short, you shall have a total of 120 minutes to solve 68-70 questions. Spending too much time on just one question could lead to less time for the questions with high weightage.

Ignoring On-Screen Timer

Solving questions with full concentration is important. However, you must not ignore the on-screen timer as it helps you understand the time limit remaining to solve the rest of the questions. Make sure to take a quick look at the CAT exam on-screen timer after solving every 3-4 questions.

Misreading Questions or Options

This is one of the most common mistakes to avoid in CAT 2025 exam. Students often misread the longer questions and options due to the exam pressure in the CAT exam hall. To avoid this mistake, ensure you keep your mind calm and read both questions and options carefully.

Marking the Wrong Option by Mistake

It is another common mistake that aspirants could make during the CAT exam. Even if you solve the entire question and find out the correct answer, there is a possibility of marking the wrong option due to the time limit or focusing on speed. This kind of mistake can only reduce your time and lead to negative marking. Sometimes, due to a network or technical error, the options may take time to get selected, ensure they are marked properly and right.

Getting Stuck in a Calculation Trap

Do not get stuck in critical calculations. For effective computation, keep your mind focused and composed. If a calculation takes longer time than usual, and you feel stuck in a loop, mark the question as flagged. Come back later in the remaining time, if possible.

Panicking During a Tough Section

Stress before the exam is common. However, sometimes it could lead to anxiety and hypertension during the exam, which is not a good sign. Managing exam stress is crucial, especially in the exam hall. Focus your mind on just solving the questions, perform calculations effectively, and keep pace with the time limit.

Ignoring the Question Palette

The question palette is available on the CAT exam screen. It highlights the number of questions answered already. Showcases the questions, which are marked flagged, and the ones which are remaining or left out by mistake. Basically, the question palette works as a progress tracker. Checking out the question palette before moving on to the next question could help you minimise your chances of leaving the questions unsolved.

Forgetting to Click ‘Save & Next’

The list of mistakes to avoid in CAT exam includes clicking on the “save & next” button. Once you have marked the correct option, it is crucial to click the “Save & Next” button. It saves your response to the exam portal and leads you to the next question. If you manually press ‘Next’ or the question number from the question palette, it would not save your responses in the portal, resulting in negative or no marking in the exam.

Top 10 CAT Exam Mistakes Aspirants Must Avoid

Here are the top CAT exam mistakes that candidates must ignore during preparation for the CAT exam. Let us quickly take a look to know what to avoid:

Begin Preparing without Proper Planning

CAT is considered one of the toughest exams in India. Most candidates at least try 2-3 times to secure a seat among the top business schools in India. Taking the CAT exam syllabus and exam pattern lightly could risk your career or academic goals. Many students begin preparing for the CAT entrance exam without making a strategy. Planning and scheduling your learning allows you to manage time better, especially during the preparation days. With proper planning, you can:

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  Manage time better for preparation, tests, and analysis.
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  Allot sufficient time to all topics & subjects.
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  Focus better on crucial topics and mock tests.

Focusing More on Low-Weightage Topics

Over the years, it has been seen that the CAT exam tests your intelligence, presence of mind, and strategic thinking skills. It’s not about rote learning. As a CAT aspirant, you must have a detailed understanding of the CAT exam syllabus and exam pattern. Prioritise the topics which are mostly asked in the exam and hold high weightage. It is important to make a strategy to strengthen your knowledge and practice of the crucial topics. Many students provide equal weightage to the topic-wise preparation. Depending on the time available till the exam, it is advised to focus on high-marking topics rather than the ones which have low weightage and possibilities.

Ignoring the Foundational Learning

CAT is a national-level exam, tests your aptitude and critical thinking abilities. While the exam is based on the syllabus, the framing of questions can significantly vary at times. Unless you have a comprehensive understanding of topics, it could be challenging to score in this exam. Therefore, you must begin from scratch, strengthen your understanding of the basics before moving on to the advanced or CAT-level topics. This is one of the reasons why 50% of the aspirants could not clear the CAT entrance exam.

Neglecting Mock-Tests

Toppers say that practising mock tests is crucial to every competitive exam. It helps you identify your weak areas, enhance speed, and accuracy over time. One of the most common CAT exam mistakes that aspirants make is waiting for the last 2 months before the CAT exam to practice mock tests. Even solving mock tests requires a full-fledged strategy. The earlier you begin solving mock tests based on your preparation, the more time you shall have to analyse your mistakes and track progress.

Taking Continuous Mock-Tests without Preparation

Another common CAT exam mistake that aspirants make is continuously and rapidly taking mock exams. Mock tests are up-to-date sample exams that align with the CAT exam’s latest syllabus. Without having prior knowledge of topics, taking an exam is a waste of time as well as energy. It only increases your possibilities to do more guesswork. CAT is a high difficulty level exam that requires in-depth knowledge and aptitude skills. Thus, aspirants are advised to solve mock tests after preparing a particular topic, chapter, or subject comprehensively.

Depending Entirely on Short-Cut Methods & Tricks

Nowadays, as the CAT exam is a hype among management enthusiasts, many mentors online and offline teach shortcuts and simpler tricks to solve questions. However, these tricks and shortcut methods are not always reliable, as most of them are conditional. Looking at the CAT exam pattern, the difficulty of questions and formats majorly varies. Solely relying on shortcuts and tricks may not be useful to score the required CAT exam cut-offs. You must begin from the basics, develop through knowledge, and practice as much as you can without depending on short tricks, especially those which are temporary in nature.

Gathering Additional Resources in the Last Days

CAT is a challenging exam. Among lakhs of candidates, only a few thousand can make it through. It often shakes the confidence of students, leading to stress and anxiety before an exam. Therefore, many students collect new resources or study materials for CAT, such as books, notes, and test series, to prepare better. However, during the last days, starting anything fresh from scratch could lead to misconceptions or lessen self-assurance. The last 1-2 months before the exam date must be utilised to practice mock tests based on your preparations, revision, and evaluating your speed and accuracy, rather than focusing on new learning resources to begin with.

Collecting Too Many Resources

As 2-3 lakhs of students take the CAT exam, it has become a marketing concept nowadays. Thus, there are various CAT exam preparation resources available nowadays. They could be in the form of e-books, hand-made notes, online tutorials on YouTube, mock-tests and test series available on various platforms. Make sure that you stick to only reliable and verified resources. In fact, running behind different mentors, whether online or offline, just leads to misconceptions as the pedagogy and teaching methodologies of the teachers highly vary.

Not Analysing Mock Tests Outcomes

This is among the most common CAT exam mistakes. Practising mock tests is not enough unless you analyse your mistakes and errors. The motive of mock tests is to help you identify your weak areas and work on them to enhance your exam speed and accuracy. Thus, it is important to go through an exam analysis every time you take a mock test. It helps you understand your mistakes and not repeat them in future.

Self-Care Routine

Last but not least, self-care is very underrated, yet the most important phase of every exam preparation, especially the IIM CAT exam. CAT exam preparation brings a lot of stress, anxiety, and hard work for aspirants. Your months and years of effort could go in vain if you do not prioritise your self-care routine. Make sure you eat a timely and healthy diet to save yourself from viral infections and diseases. Getting adequate sleep is crucial to calm your brain down and reduce mental pressure. It is recommended to follow a healthy lifestyle during CAT entrance exam preparation to avoid unnecessary issues that could hinder your CAT preparation and scores.

Key Takeaway

CAT is a premier MBA entrance exam, widely popular among students in India for admission to MBA and other management courses. The competition for the CAT exam is high. As the seats in the IIMs and other top B-schools in India are limited, the difficulty level of the CAT exam is challenging. Any mistake made during the exam preparation or exam could cost you your academic as well as career objectives. It is crucial to know about the mistakes to avoid in CAT exam to maintain integrity. Explore the mistakes, understand the depth, and save yourself from making one.