Number of questions in CAT

The test used to comprise upwards of 180 questions in the early 90s. Since 1999, the number of questions in the CAT test has been steadily decreasing. What used to be a 165-questions paper in CAT 1999 and 2000 became a 150-questions paper in 2001 to 2003. In 2004, the test had 123 questions and in 2005 the CAT paper had only 90 questions. The number was reduced further in 2006 to a 75-questions paper divided equally into three sections. Typically this test can be expected to comprise between 75 to 150 objective type questions and is usually divided into three to four sections. Each question has a question statement followed by four or five alternate answer choices and the candidate has to choose the best answer for each of the questions and mark it on a special Optical Reader answer sheet.

The duration of the test used to be 120 minutes till 2005. Since, 2006 the duration has been increased by 25% to a 150 minutes test. This literally translates to answering a CAT question in 2 minutes since 2006 compared to less than a minute that was given in earlier CAT papers. Most successful aspirants would have attempted about 45 to 50 questions translating to attempting 180 to 200 marks worth questions in a 300 marks paper. (In 2006, each correct answer carried 4 positive marks and each incorrect answer carried a penalty of 1 mark).