CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025: Check Marks Vs Percentile Prediction for Slot 1, 2, 3

This section explains how IIM CAT converts candidate’s responses (answer sheet) into raw scores, applies normalization, calculates scaled scores, assigns ranks, and finally assigns percentiles. Read step-by-step guide to understand how IIMs conduct CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025 calculation process and generate your CAT scorecard.

Step 1: Response Evaluation
In this step, the candidate’s answers for the VARC, DILR, and QA sections are checked against the CAT official answer key. Each response is classified as correct, incorrect, or a TITA (type-in-the-answer) response. No marks are assigned at this stage. The purpose here is only to identify the accuracy (correct, wrong, un attempted) of each response so that the scoring rules can be applied correctly in the next step.

Step 2: Raw Score Calculation
After the responses are evaluated for all candidates, the raw score for each section is calculated using the official CAT marking scheme. For every correct answer, the candidate is awarded +3 marks. For each incorrect MCQ, –1 mark is deducted, while TITA (non-MCQ) questions do not carry negative marking even if the answer is wrong. This process is applied separately to VARC, DILR, and QA for each candidate to produce the “CAT raw section-wise scores”, which form the basis for applying CAT normalization process.

Step 3: Slot-wise, Section-wise Normalization Process 
Since CAT is conducted in three shifts with totally different question papers, the level of difficulty can vary slightly across slots. To ensure fairness to all candidates, the raw scores obtained by the candidate in each section (VARC, DILR, and QA) are adjusted using a statistical CAT normalization process. This process adjusts the CAT scores for all candidates for all slots by considering factors such as the mean and distribution of scores in each slot. Read more about CAT normalization process in the following section. The result of this step is the scaled score for each section, which allows scores from different slots to be compared on a common scale.

Step 4: Overall Scaled Score Calculation
Once the scaled scores for VARC, DILR, and QA for all candidates are obtained, they are added together to determine the candidate’s overall scaled score. This score represents the candidate’s performance across all three sections on a common, normalized scale. This CAT Scaled Score gives a fair comparison for all candidates, which is adjusted for difficulty level. This CAT overall scaled score is used for ranking candidates, and is the basis for calculating the percentile as explained in the next step.

Step 5: Ranking of Candidates
After the CAT overall scaled scores are calculated for all candidates, they are ranked in descending order based on these scores. The candidate with the highest overall scaled score is assigned the top rank, followed sequentially by others. This ranking reflects each candidate’s performance relative to all others who appeared for the exam for all the three slots. This rank is used for calculating the percentile in the next step.

Step 6: Percentile Calculation
In the sixth and final step, once the ranks are assigned, the percentile is calculated to indicate the candidate’s relative performance among all CAT test-takers. The CAT percentile shows the percentage of candidates who scored less than or equal to the candidate. It is derived using the candidate’s rank and the total number of candidates who took the exam. Percentiles are computed section-wise and overall, and these percentiles are the final values reported on the CAT scorecard. 

Table 1 presents a summary of CAT 2025 score & percentile calculation process.

Table 1: CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025 Calculation Process

As explained in step 3 above, since CAT is conducted in three shifts with totally different question papers, the level of difficulty can vary slightly across slots. To ensure fairness to all candidates, the raw scores obtained by the candidate in each section (VARC, DILR, and QA) are adjusted using a statistical CAT normalization process. This process adjusts the CAT scores for all candidates for all slots by considering factors such as the mean and distribution of scores in each slot. The result of this step is the scaled score for each section, which allows scores from different slots to be compared on a common scale. Check complete details in the image below that is the explanation of official CAT Normalization Process. 

Source: IIM Calcutta

As described in step 6 above, CAT percentile is calculated to show the percentage of candidates who scored less than or equal to the candidate, computed both section-wise and overall. Read this detailed explanation of how CAT percentile is calculated. 

Percentile in CAT exam is calculated by taking into account the total number of candidates who appeared for CAT in all the 3 slots. Each candidate is assigned a rank based on scaled score and if more than one candidate obtains same scaled scores, same percentile is assigned to them. Following Process is followed to arrive at CAT percentile score:

• Calculate the total number of candidates (N) who appeared for CAT (i.e. including morning, afternoon and evening sessions).
• Assign a rank (r), based on the scaled scores obtained in the QA section, to all candidates who appeared for CAT. In the case of two or more candidates obtaining identical scaled scores in the QA section, assign identical ranks to all those candidates. Suppose exactly two candidates obtain the highest scaled score in the QA section, then both of those candidates are assigned a rank of 1. Moreover, the candidate(s) obtaining the second highest scaled score in the QA section are assigned a rank of 3 and so on.
• Now Calculate the percentile score (P) of a candidate with rank (r) in the QA section as:
  P = [(N – r )/n] x 100   
• Round off the calculated percentile score (P) of a candidate up to two decimal points. For example, all percentile scores greater than or equal to 99.995 are rounded off to 100, all percentile scores greater than or equal to 99.985 but less than 99.995 are rounded off to 99.99 and so on.

It can be seen from the above discussions, CAT exam paper difficulty level will have a direct impact on CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025 outcomes. A detailed analysis of CAT exam difficulty level by MBAUniverse.com reveals that IIMs balance paper difficulty level across years. If a section of the paper was easy in a given year, the next year become more difficult. However, if a section of the CAT paper was very difficult in once year, it generally becomes earlier the next year. Specifically, in 2023, under IIM Lucknow, both DILR and QA sections were rated difficult to very difficult, resulting in an overall tough paper. In fact according to CAT experts like Arun Sharma, author of bestselling CAT books, CAT 2023 paper was one of the toughest CAT papers in last 10 years. Next year, to balance a very difficult paper, CAT 2024 paper was set to be one of the easiest papers in last 10 years. 

Following this cycle, CAT 2025 is expected to return to a moderate level across the three sections. Hence, IIM Kozhikode CAT paper difficulty level is expected to be more difficult than CAT 2024. Check table 2 below for more details. 

Table 2: CAT Exam Paper 2025 Difficulty Level: Expectation & Prediction

 Source: MBAUniverse.com

So, how does the difficulty level impact the score vs percentile? MBAUniverse.com did an analysis of CAT score vs percentile last 5 years data -- from 2021 to 2024 to answer this question. In CAT 2024, candidates needed around 125 marks for the 99.9 percentile, significantly higher than the 100 marks required in CAT 2023, confirming that CAT 2023 was considerably tougher. A similar trend is seen across other percentiles. For instance, the 99 percentile required 95 marks in 2024 compared to only 77 in 2023. This consistent inverse relationship between difficulty level of CAT exam paper and the scores required to score high percentages indicates that even small changes in paper difficulty level can cause large shifts in percentile cut-offs. Check CAT score Vs Percentile 2023, CAT score vs percentile 2022 and CAT score vs percentile 2021 in table 3 for CAT Score Vs Percentiles previous years trends. 

Table 3: CAT Score Vs Percentile: Previous Year’s Trends by MBAUniverse.com 

Source: MBAUniverse.com

So, if CAT 2025 difficulty level is expected to go up moderately that last year (table 2), what are the CAT 2025 expected score vs percentile estimates. Refer table 4 for CAT Score Vs Percentiles 2025 estimates. Please note that these estimates are based on above assumptions and can change based on actual CAT exam paper. 

Table 4: CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025 (Expected) 

Source: MBAUniverse.com

Based on CAT previous year’s pattern and difficulty level, CAT Marks Vs Percentile 2025 estimates are as below:

• 60 marks in CAT percentile will be equal to 90 percentile
• 30 marks in CAT percentile will be equal to 75 percentil

Based on Admission Policies of IIMs and other top B-schools like MDI and SPJIMR, CAT Expected score vs percentile 2025 for top B-schools will be published in coming days. 

For your reference, last year CAT score vs percentile estimates for all sections and slots by IMS Coaching are given below. 

CAT 2024 Score vs Percentile Slot 1

Source: IMS Learning 

CAT 2024 Score vs Percentile Slot 2

Source: IMS Learning

CAT 2024 Score vs Percentile Slot 3

Source: IMS Learning 

In summary, CAT Percentile vs Score 2025 defines the relationship between a candidate’s CAT Score and percentile among all test-takers. Above article explains the CAT scoring and percentile calculation method followed by IIM CAT. Based on estimated CAT 2025 exam difficulty level, estimated CAT Score vs Percentile 2025 are also published in above article. After checking details of score and percentile, check how to calculate CAT score using CAT Score Calculator 2025 and CAT Score Vs Percentile Predictor 2025.