CAT Score Vs Percentile 2025: Check How Many Marks Are Needed for 99+ Percentile

CAT Score Vs Percentile: The Common Admission Test (CAT) is one of the most competitive MBA entrance exams in India. While preparing for the CAT exam, aspirants often encounter terms like CAT score and CAT percentile, which are crucial for understanding their performance and chances of admission to top B-schools. Though the terms are related, they differ in how they reflect a candidate’s performance. The CAT score reflects your absolute performance, while the percentile indicates your relative standing. Both metrics play a vital role in the MBA admission process, so focus on maximising your score to achieve a higher percentile and improve your chances of securing admission to your dream institute.

What is CAT Score?

The CAT score is the raw score a candidate obtains in the exam based on the number of correct and incorrect answers. The scoring system for CAT follows this marking scheme:

• Correct Answer: +3 marks.

• Incorrect Answer (MCQs): -1 mark.

• No Negative Marking: For non-MCQs.

The CAT exam is divided into three sections:

1. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC)

2. Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR)

3. Quantitative Ability (QA)

Each section has its own score, and the total CAT score is the sum of the scores from all three sections. 

What is CAT Percentile?

The CAT percentile is a relative score, signifying a candidate's marks in the CAT 2025 exam. It categorises candidates based on their performance compared to other CAT test takers. For example, if a candidate achieves 99 percentile, it means he/she performed better than 99% of all CAT test takers in that particular year. It is used by top B-schools for shortlisting candidates for further rounds, such as GD (Group Discussion), PI (Personal Interview), and WAT (Written Ability Test).

What is CAT Scaled Score?

Typically, the CAT exam is conducted in three sessions, each with a different test paper. To ensure fairness and equity in comparing the performance of candidates across different test sessions, the scores will be normalised. After normalisation across the different papers, the scores will also be normalised across the sections. The scaled/normalised scores obtained through this process will then be converted into percentiles for shortlisting.

CAT 2025 Scaled Score Calculation

IIM will follow the following steps to calculate the scaled score of a candidate in each of the three sections in CAT 2025. Three sessions of the CAT examination are expressed as a morning session (8:30 AM – 10:30 AM), an afternoon session (12:30 PM – 2:30 PM) and an evening session (4:30 PM – 6:30 PM), on November 30, 2025. The overall scaled score is obtained by adding the scaled scores of these three sections.

CAT 2025 Scaled Score Calculation

CAT 2025 Percentile Score Calculation

The percentile score is calculated based on your scaled score, which is normalised to account for differences between different test sessions and papers. A percentile is not directly related to the actual score you achieved in the exam, but instead to your ranking relative to others. 

The following method will be used by IIM Calcutta to calculate the percentile scores.

CAT 2025 Percentile Score Calculation

How Many Marks Are Needed for a 99+ Percentile in CAT 2025? (Expected Score)

The table below has been prepared by experts after analysing last year's trends. It will help candidates understand the marks they need to score in the CAT 2025 exam to achieve a specific percentile.