CAT Score vs Percentile: What’s the Difference?

If you are preparing for the CAT (Common Admissions Test), you may wonder how the CAT score differs from the CAT percentile. A common question students often ask about the test is, “What are the CAT marks vs percentile?” Sure enough, there’s a difference between the two.

Your CAT score reflects the total marks based on the number of correct and incorrect responses you marked. Your CAT percentile, on the other hand, tells you the percentage of test takers you outperformed. Clarifying this distinction will help you understand how much you need to score to clear your sectional cut-offs, how you can maximise your chances of studying at your preferred B-school, and where you stand in comparison to the competition.

Let’s deep dive into the CAT score vs Percentile.

CAT Score vs Percentile

What is Your CAT Score?

Your CAT score is the total of marks you get based on the CAT marking scheme.
· +3 for every correct answer
· –1 for MCQ incorrect
· 0 for TITA (non-MCQ) wrong answers

The CAT is held across multiple slots, and though the IIMs, the conducting body, try to keep all three slots near identical in difficulty, that never turns out to be the case due to the inherent randomness in question distribution and how the candidate pool will react to those questions.

What is the CAT Percentile?

Now let’s talk about the CAT percentile. It’s simply the percentage of people you outperformed at the test. So if you scored a 99 percentile, it means you did better than 99 percent of the people who took the test. For instance, if scoring 76.02 marks in CAT corresponded with a 99th percentile, you scored better than 99% of all CAT takers.

Your CAT percentile is a crucial bit of information that will be used by colleges and universities to determine whether you’re deserving of admission. Your final percentile will be rounded off to two decimal places.

Did you know that the same CAT raw score can give different percentiles in different slots? It all depends on the normalization process.

What is the CAT Normalisation Process?

To ensure fairness, the CAT score normalisation process was introduced. The process ensures that differences in difficulty levels are accounted for.

For instance, if the third slot for CAT was easier than the first one, during normalisation, the scores from the third slot will be scaled down, while scores from the first slot will get scaled up. This is done to ensure a common scale for evaluating test performance.

To understand this format better, you should have a fair idea about the CAT pattern and its marking scheme.

What’s the CAT Pattern and Marking Scheme?

There are three sections in the CAT. First is Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC); second is Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and the third is Quantitative Aptitude (QA). Each section has 22 or 24 questions, each carrying 3 marks.

Students ought to know that CAT carries negative marking. This means if you attempt a question and get it wrong, you could get a penalty of -1. CAT assesses your decision-making skills, right at the outset.

However, not all questions are the same in CAT. While the MCQs have negative marking, the TITA or ‘Type in Your Answer’ questions have no negative marking.

CAT Score vs Percentile 2025

Here is the distinction between CAT marks and percentiles for the most recent CAT 2025.

Let’s explore the score vs percentile distinction of the previous years.

CAT Score vs Percentile 2024

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023

What is a Good CAT Score?

There is no simple answer to this question. However, it’s always better to aim for 90 percentile and above if you want admission to some of the best MBA colleges in India.

To attain this goal, you should target the following number of questions with 85% to 90% accuracy. 

Understanding the difference between the CAT score and the percentile will help you fine-tune your strategy for your target college. Based on the cutoffs for the college you are targeting, you need to decide on a score you want to achieve.

Then, you match that score with the number of questions you need to attempt.

Finally, you can match the total number of questions to the topics you need to study based on each topic’s weightage. While there is no fixed weightage for each topic, past trends help determine the expected weightage.

How to Improve CAT Scores?

You can improve your CAT score by keeping these points in mind:

Target 100% accuracy in your strongest area

Identify your strengths and work the hardest on it. Even 1 or 2 silly mistakes can impact your percentile. In DILR, selecting the wrong sets or selecting the wrong questions in QA can really set your score back. So work harder on your strengths and aim for 100% accuracy.

Maintain sectional balance

While you may work on your strengths, you shouldn’t neglect other sections. IIMs require minimum sectional percentiles; maintain 85-90 percentiles in each section.

Take 20–25 full-length mock tests

Taking CAT mocks helps you build test stamina, understand your strengths and weaknesses, and refine your strategies.

Enrol for CAT prep

CAT is not the same for everyone. Everyone has different starting points, strengths and goals. Based on where you stand as a CAT aspirant, you have to tweak your CAT prep. No matter how confident you feel about cracking the CAT, you will benefit from a little help from experts, especially when it’s personalised. Enrol in a highly rated CAT coaching program such as IMS CATapult to boost your confidence.

Hopefully, this has sufficiently dispelled any doubts about the CAT percentile vs marks.