CAT Score vs Percentile 2023

CAT Marks vs Percentile: CAT is one of the important examinations for the candidates who wants to pursue the MBA program from top IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) or B-schools. Understanding the basic difference between raw scores, scaled scores and final percentile is important for candidates to ensure the pattern and difficulty levels which later help them in their CAT preparation journey. Getting good percentile in the CAT exam, help students to convert top IIMs in India. For top Indian Institutes of Management, candidates should cover 98-99+ percentile to get the calls. In this blog, we will be talking about the CAT Score vs Percentile 2023, covering overall percentile, CAT marks vs percentile 2023 across VARC (Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning), LRDI (Logical Reasoning & Data Interpretation) and QA (Quantitative Ability), process of converting CAT score to percentile and more.

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What is CAT Score vs Percentile?

CAT scores and percentile both are important factors to understand by the candidates to cover the difficulty level, expected percentile equivalent to scores and more. The CAT raw scores refers to the marks according to actual marking scheme given by official authorities. In CAT exam, +3 is awarded to every correct answer and -1 is deducted for the incorrect one. Now the second stage before directly moving to the CAT percentile is scaled score. CAT exam is conducted in different slots and vary with difficulty levels, so to ensure fairness in the exam normalisation process need to cover to ensure scaled scores. Now the final stage where scaled scores are finally converted to the CAT percentile.

The basic formula which is used for CAT percentile is 𝑃 = ((𝑁 − 𝑟)/𝑁) x 100. Given below are the overall CAT Score vs Percentile 2023.

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023 (Overall)

Percentile	Marks in 2023
99.9	101
99.5	84
99	76
97	61
95	54
90	44
80	35

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023: Section-Wise Trends

This section covers the CAT marks vs percentile 2023 according to the sections covering the VARC (Verbal Ability & Logical Reasoning), LRDI (Logical Reasoning & Data Interpretation) and QA (Quantitative Ability).

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023 for VARC (Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension)

CAT Percentile	Scaled CAT Score
100	61.66
99.99	57.32
99.87	51.02
99.5	44
99.26	41.76
99	39.7
98.21	35.88
96.72	31.47
95	28.68
93.5	26.33
90	23.39
86.43	20.66
80	17.58
75	15.27
62.28	11.53

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023 for DILR (Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning)

CAT Percentile	Scaled CAT Score
100	50.6
99.99	42.7
99.9	36.58
99.71	32.78
99.43	29.71
99.14	27.56
99	27.39
98.37	24.58
96.83	20.88
95.53	19.6
90	15.63
84.87	13.01
80	11.67
77.88	10.81
72.94	9.67

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023 for QA (Quantitative Ability)

Percentile	QA Score
100	49
99	28
98	24
95	20
90	14
80	9

Process of Converting CAT Score to Percentile

Step	Process	Description
1	Raw Score Calculation	Sum of marks from all sections (3 marks for each correct answer, -1 for each wrong MCQ, 0 for unattempted or TITA).
2	Sectional Scoring	Raw scores are calculated separately for VARC, DILR, and QA.
3	Normalization	Since CAT is held in multiple slots, scores are normalized to ensure fairness across different difficulty levels.
4	Scaled Score Generation	The normalized scores for each section and total are converted into scaled scores using a statistical formula.
5	Percentile Calculation	Percentile = (Number of candidates scoring less than you / Total number of candidates) × 100
6	Final Percentile Assignment	The final CAT percentile (overall + sectional) is published after rounding off up to two decimal places.

CAT Score vs Percentile 2023 for top IIMs or B-Schools

Percentile	Marks in 2023
99.9	101
99.5	84
99	76
97	61
95	54
90	44
80	35

Why it is Important to Know CAT Score vs Percentile?

Understanding the CAT score vs percentile help candidates in setting the real targets. When candidate will know the equivalent percentile according to the scores then they will easily target the weaker sections based on the percentile cutoffs. Although attempting mock test series are equally important to analyze the actual paper pattern but without knowing the difference between CAT scores and percentiles, it is difficult for candidates to analyze their marks while attempting mocks.

Another factor is explanation of the effect of normalization and scaled scores in multiple slots of CAT exam. The overall understanding of CAT scores vs percentile reflect the marks in actual CAT exam.

Conclusion (CAT Score vs Percentile 2023)

CAT score vs percentile is important for the candidates to understand the actual exam pattern along with difficulty levels. In CAT 2023, for 101 marks the CAT percentile is equivalent to 99.9%ile. Similarly for 84 marks it is 99.5 and so on. This is generally reflecting the tougher exam in comparison to the previous years. The variations across sections like VARC (Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension), LRDI (Logical Reasoning & Data Interpretation) and QA (Quantitative Ability) covers the importance of maintaining the balance, speed and accuracy rather than completely relying on one strong area. The difficulty level and normalization varies each year so that aspirants should focus on achieving the targeted percentile instead of getting stuck with the fixed scores to plan their preparation efficiently across VARC, DILR & QA.

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