CAT 2026 Last 45 Days Preparation Plan: Weekly Mock Schedule

Last verified: 12 October 2026 against iimcat.ac.in (IIM Indore's CAT 2026 press release of 26 July 2026 and the CAT 2026 information bulletin).

CAT 2026 is on Sunday, 29 November 2026. If you're reading this on 16 October, that is 44 days away: room for about ten full mocks and, more importantly, time to analyse each one properly. This plan is written for the two groups with the least slack: working professionals fitting CAT around a job, and final-year students fitting it around semester exams.

One rule sits underneath everything here. In the last six weeks, your score rises through better question selection and fewer avoidable errors, not through new chapters. The weekly table, the analysis template and the section notes below all serve that rule.

What does the CAT 2026 test actually look like?

CAT 2026 is a 120-minute computer-based test in three sections, with exactly 40 minutes per section and no switching between them. That is the official format for this cycle, so build every practice session around it.

Here is what IIM Indore's press release and the IIMs' information bulletin, both published on iimcat.ac.in, say about the test:

• The test is on 29 November 2026, held in three sessions on the same day. IIM Indore is conducting it this year.
• The sections are numbered Section I: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC), Section II: Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (DILR), and Section III: Quantitative Ability (QA).
• Candidates get exactly 40 minutes for each section and can't move to another section while answering one.
• A mock exam showing the test format will be available on the CAT website.
• Tests run at centres in about 170 cities, and once a centre is allotted, it can't be changed.

What the 2026 press release and bulletin don't give: the number of questions, the marking scheme and the timings of the three sessions. If you see figures for these elsewhere, they don't come from this year's official documents, so nothing in this plan depends on them. When the official mock goes live, read its instruction screens carefully and trust them over any third-party summary.

The practical consequence of fixed 40-minute sections is simple: minutes you save in VARC can't be spent on QA. Each section is its own race, so you need a routine for each one, not just for the paper as a whole.

How should you split the 44 days, week by week?

Split the time into four build weeks with two full mocks each, then a two-week taper with fewer mocks and more revision. The first week sets a baseline, and the last three days are for rest and logistics, not testing.

The table assumes you stick with one mock series (whichever you already use), so scores stay comparable from week to week. Each full mock is 2 hours of testing, matching the official 120-minute duration. The analysis hours are our planning assumption: never less than the mock itself, and more during the build weeks.

That adds up to ten full mocks. If work only allows one mock a week, keep the analysis hours and cut the mock count instead. A mock you never review is little more than a timing drill.

How do you analyse a CAT mock so it actually raises your score?

Give every mock at least as much analysis time as test time, and sort each question by what you should have done, not only by whether you got it right. The output you want is a short list of fixable patterns, not a score to feel good or bad about.

Analyse within a day of the mock, while you still remember why you picked each question. Log every question you attempted, skipped or never reached in a sheet like this one:

Three buckets matter most when you read the sheet back:

1. Should have attempted, didn't. Easy marks left on the table, usually a selection problem.
2. Attempted, shouldn't have. Time sinks that cost you questions you never reached.
3. Correct, but slow. Next week's time sinks. Look for a faster route or set yourself a cut-off.

Then choose one fix per section for the coming week. A single fix you practise every day beats eight you only write down. If you already keep a list of doubts, the same discipline applies; our post on clearing doubts systematically shows how to stop them piling up.

What should you focus on in VARC, DILR and QA?

Work on approach rather than new content: reading stamina and option elimination in VARC, set selection in DILR, and accuracy on familiar methods in QA. Your own mock log, not a generic plan, should decide which section gets the most hours.

VARC. Reading speed and comprehension don't jump in a week, which is why daily reading appears in every week of the plan. We assume 30 minutes a day of dense reading, such as editorials or long-form essays, on top of the reading you do inside mocks. For verbal ability questions, review why each wrong option is wrong: that reasoning carries over to the next question, while the answer itself doesn't.

DILR. This section rewards choosing well more than solving fast. Spend the first couple of minutes of each sectional scanning every set and ranking them, then start with the one you understand quickest. Give yourself a cut-off too: if a set hasn't produced a single answer after about 8 minutes (our planning rule; adjust it to your speed), mark it and move on. Inside a fixed 40 minutes, one stubborn set can swallow the rest of the section.

QA. Six weeks out, revisit methods you already know rather than starting topics you've skipped so far. Keep a one-page sheet of formulas and shortcuts and revise it twice a week. In each mock, note the questions you lost to calculation slips; if the same kind keeps recurring, add a quick check before you mark an answer.

Our CAT sections and topics page lists the topics past papers have covered under each section (neither 2026 document includes a syllabus), which helps when you compare gaps in your log against the wider scope.

How do working professionals and final-year students fit this in?

Put full mocks on weekends or holidays, and use weekday evenings for analysis and short sectionals. We plan on weekday blocks of 2–3 hours, because longer evenings are hard to sustain for six weeks next to a job or classes.

A typical working week allows one mock on Saturday morning with its analysis that afternoon, a second mock on Sunday, and that second analysis spread over Monday and Tuesday evenings. Wednesday to Friday evenings then go to sectionals and the week's fixes. Final-year students usually have more weekday time but face internal exams and submissions, so check your college calendar now and mark the weeks where only one mock is realistic.

To test whether your available hours cover this plan, the study hours calculator on this site takes your exam date, remaining topics and daily time and gives a feasibility check. In this phase, steady evenings matter more than one heroic Sunday; the reasoning is in why consistency beats long hours.

How does a working professional's week break down? (Worked example)

In this worked example, a hypothetical professional has 26.5 study hours a week: two mocks and their analysis take 9 of them, and most of the remaining 17.5 go to the weakest section.

The inputs are planning assumptions, not targets for everyone: 2.5 focused hours on each weekday and 7 hours on each weekend day.

• Weekly budget: 5 weekdays × 2.5 hours = 12.5 hours, plus 2 weekend days × 7 hours = 14 hours, for 26.5 hours in total.
• Two full mocks: 2 × 2 hours = 4 hours.
• Analysis: 2 × 2.5 hours = 5 hours.
• Left for practice and revision: 26.5 − 4 − 5 = 17.5 hours.

Suppose this person's last two mocks showed DILR as the weakest section and VARC as the strongest. One reasonable split of the remaining 17.5 hours:

After week 3, if the error log shows fewer poor-selection entries in DILR, move two of those hours back to QA. The split isn't fixed; the log decides it each Sunday night.

What should you sort out for the admit card, session and test day?

Download your admit card once downloads open on 4 November, check the test centre it names, and read every instruction on it. Do this in week 3, not the night before the exam.

• Admit card window. The information bulletin says admit cards can be downloaded from 4 November 2026 until 29 November 2026. The press release names iimcat.ac.in as the sole official CAT website, so use only that site.
• Test centre. The bulletin says the centre's name will be on the admit card, and the press release says no change is permitted once a centre is allotted. Plan the route early, ideally with a trial run at the same time of day.
• Session timing. The 2026 documents confirm three sessions on 29 November but don't give their timings or say where your session will be shown. Watch iimcat.ac.in and read your admit card closely when you download it, then move your mock times and sleep to match in weeks 5 and 6.
• What to carry. Neither the bulletin nor the press release lists permitted items, so follow the instructions issued with your admit card rather than an old checklist.
• Late changes. The IIMs reserve the right to change the test date and time if the situation warrants it, so check iimcat.ac.in during the final week. The help desk number in the bulletin is 1800 210 0175.

On test day, run the same section routines you used in your last few mocks. The exam hall is not the place to try a new DILR scanning method or a new VARC reading order.

How do you keep track of all this without losing the thread?

Keep three things in one place: the days left, your mock scores by section, and the weekly fixes from your error log. A notebook works, and so does a spreadsheet.

If you'd rather use an app, Kalnehi Daily (ours) has a Mock Test Tracker where you log VARC, DILR and QA scores for each mock and see how each section trends. For the days left, the CAT 2026 countdown carries a shorter, phase-by-phase version of this plan, and the CAT preparation hub collects our other CAT pages.