VARC guide
Twelve correct, one passage left alone
A safe route to 12 correct
Three passages, 12 questions, 75% accuracy24
9 correct and 3 wrong: 27 − 3 = 24 marks.
All 8 VA questions attempted+8
Even 3 correct with 1 wrong MCQ adds 9 − 1 = 8 marks.
12 correct, 4 wrong MCQs32
A fourth passage or a stronger VA showing is margin.
What the target is worth
| Percentile | CAT 2024 | CAT 2025 (initial estimates, by slot) |
|---|---|---|
| 99th | 40.3 | 40–41 |
| 95th | 30 | 30–32 |
| 90th | 24 | 23–25 |
| 85th | 20.4 | 19–20 |
| 80th | 18.2 | 17–18 |
Sources: Cracku (CAT 2024) and IMS (CAT 2025 initial estimates, so treat them as approximate).
The format you will face
- CAT 2025 VARC had 24 questions: 4 reading passages with 4 questions each, plus 8 verbal-ability questions, 2 each of summary, para-completion, odd-one-out and para jumbles.
- 20 were MCQs and 4 were TITA. The TITAs are usually the jumbles and odd-one-outs.
- Marking: +3 for a correct answer, −1 for a wrong MCQ, 0 for a wrong TITA. So the jumbles and odd-one-outs are free attempts: always enter an answer.
Exam day: three passages, all eight VA questions
Read three passages carefully, attempt all eight VA questions, and leave the hardest passage alone. Rushing through four passages usually costs more marks in wrong answers than it earns.
Minute 0 to 2
1. Rank the passages
Open all four and read the first three lines of each. Rank them by how easily the sentences go in, and leave the densest one.
Minute 2 to 29
2. Your three passages
About 9 minutes each: 4 minutes reading, 5 minutes answering.
Minute 29 to 39
3. Verbal ability
Summaries and completions first (about 1.5 minutes each), then jumbles and odd-one-outs (about 2 minutes each).
Minute 39 to 40
4. TITA check
Check that every TITA box has an answer.
Choosing your three passages
In CAT 2025, IMS rated one passage per slot easy and one medium; the other two were harder. The easy ones were on early doctors diagnosing mental disorders, how a fish species evolved, and the harm done by dams. The harder ones included objections to electronic music, the role of place in literature and a forest law.
- Pick
- Narrative or explanatory passages (science, history, environment, economics) with concrete examples, and questions that point to specific paragraphs.
- Leave
- Abstract arguments about art, literary theory or philosophy with few examples, long winding sentences, and question sets made mostly of tone and “the author would agree” items.
Guessing rules
- MCQs (RC, summaries, completions): guess only after you have eliminated two options.
- TITA (jumbles, odd-one-outs): never leave the box blank.
- If you cannot state a passage’s main point after one reading, answer only its detail questions and move on.
Two time traps
- Re-reading the whole passage for every question. Go back only to the paragraph the question points to.
- Four minutes on one para jumble. If no linked pair of sentences appears within 2 minutes, enter your best order and move on: it costs nothing if wrong.