The CAT 2026 notification is officially out on the IIM website, and the race to India’s top B-schools has begun. Last year, nearly 2.95 lakh aspirants registered for CAT, and with registrations witnessing a slight decline over the past few years, this could be a great opportunity for serious aspirants.
Mark these important dates on the wall in front of your study table. CAT 2026 registrations are open from August 3 to September 15, and the exam will be held on Sunday, November 29. These are not just dates on a calendar. They are milestones on your journey to the IIMs.
The CAT Journey Begins Now
So, are you excited or nervous?
This is usually the stage where things start getting real. Every mock score suddenly feels important. Every Reading Comprehension passage you struggled with and every Quant topic you skipped starts bothering you. You begin to wonder if everything you’ve studied so far is enough.
Let me tell you something I have always believed.
CAT is a loser’s game.
You don’t have to solve every question to crack the exam. In fact, you only need to follow what I call the 11-11-11 Rule. If you can get around 11 questions correct in each section, you are already in the race for a 99 percentile. Stop chasing perfection. Start chasing accuracy.
If you’re an engineer worried about VARC or a non-engineer worried about Quant, don’t spend all your energy thinking about your weakness. Improve it, yes, but at the same time, take your strongest section to the moon. Your strengths should become your biggest advantage.
CAT 2025 Marks vs Percentile
For aspirants preparing for CAT 2026, understanding the relationship between CAT marks and percentile is important. In CAT 2025, a score of approximately 85 marks was equivalent to the 99 Percentile, which was around 10 correct questions in each section, or roughly 28.33 questions overall. This shows that you don’t need to attempt every question to achieve a high percentile. You need to focus on the right questions and maintain accuracy.
Your 4-Month CAT 2026 Strategy
One question I get almost every day on my YouTube channel is, “Sir, are four months enough to crack CAT?”
My answer is always the same. Yes, if you prepare strategically.
Here’s a simple 4-month CAT preparation strategy for the next four months. Read quality content every day, especially Aeon Essays, to improve your comprehension and reading speed. Solve two DILR sets daily and practice 15 to 20 Quant questions every weekday. This will make up a total of 240 DILR sets and 2,400 Quant questions.
Not just that, if you make 16 RC questions out of 24 questions and 22 questions in DILR, that makes a total of 38/68 questions attempted. How cool is that?
Never Skip Mock Analysis
Reserve your weekends for full-length mock tests and, more importantly, mock analysis. Your mock score tells you where you are. Your analysis tells you how to get better.
One of the biggest mistakes aspirants make is taking mock after mock without understanding their errors. Every wrong answer has a lesson behind it. Learn that lesson, and your next mock will automatically improve.
Over the years at CATKing we’ve seen that students improve the most when they follow a structured preparation plan instead of jumping between multiple books, YouTube channels, and random PDFs. Our mentors, many of whom have worked with organizations such as GE, Bain & Company, and JPMorgan Chase, and graduated from institutes including IIM Lucknow, NMIMS, SPJIMR, SIBM, and JBIMS, consistently emphasize one principle: disciplined preparation always beats last-minute panic.
Focus on What You Can Control During CAT 2026 Preparation
Finally, remember that there are things you can control and things you cannot.
You cannot change your past academic scores. You cannot change your profile overnight. But you can improve your CAT score. You can build consistency. You can make every single day between now and November 29 count.
Give these next four months everything you’ve got.
And always remember one line I tell every CAT aspirant:
Don’t reject yourself. Let the IIM reject you.
I’ll see you on the other side of CAT 2026.
By Sumit Singh Gandhi, Founder, CATKing
