[PDF] CAT 2023 Question Paper (Slot 1-2-3) with Solutions FREE Download

CAT 2023 Question Papers are available on this page. There are two sets of PDFs, one set is the question set without answers, and the other is the question paper with answers. But before you start using the PDFs to practice questions, we would like to tell you something about the difficulty of the papers and how it was different from previous years’ CAT papers.

CAT 2023 was one of the toughest CATs ever. Barring the VARC section, there was nothing that could have been termed ‘moderate’. Even the VARC section was difficult by normal standards, but the percentage of easy and doable questions was much higher in the VARC section than what was there in the other two sections. The QA and DILR questions were difficult across all the three slots. The conventional DI set that we saw in CAT 2022 was not seen in CAT 2023. Even the sets there were apparently doable had such subtle conditions in them that even after confidently solving the set, one was not sure whether one had got all the questions correct or not. The response sheet came as a surprise to many aspirants.

Coming to the VARC section, the one major change was the return of the odd one out type of questions. This question type was not there in 2022 but in CAT 2022, 2 questions in all the slots came from this topic. Thus, the VA part had 8 questions, with 2 questions each from para summary, fill in the paragraph, odd one out and parajumbles.

The highlight in the QA section was the overwhelming proportion of high difficulty Algebra questions. Until CAT 2022, arithmetic questions comprised almost 50 percent of the QA paper. In 2023, across all the slots, the number of questions from algebra and arithmetic was almost the same, and some questions from arithmetic had a tinge of algebra in them. In short, the paper was not easy and came as a big surprise even to the best of aspirants. 

How to use the CAT 2023 Question Paper PDF:

1. Don’t solve these papers, at least for the QA section, without completing the syllabus. Clarity of concepts and greater degree of practice are very important in the QA section. Without these it will be very difficult for anyone to solve the QA questions.

2. If you do not get the answers correct, do not jump to the conclusion that you are not good for this exam. At 4 correct questions, people got 90 percentile in QA and LRDI section.

3. CAT is not like any board exam or university exam where a good performance is possible only when 90 percent of the questions have been attempted. In CAT, correctly solving just 33 percent of the paper means you have done quite well.

Here are the PDFs of the CAT 2023 question papers.

CAT 2023 question paper PDF with answer keys and solutions is available for download.