Last updated Jul 14, 2026
CAT, IPMAT & XAT Previous Year Questions
PYQs are the single most direct way to know what an exam actually asks — not a simulation of it. GRADSCALE currently has 8 papers free to preview, no login required.
Browse Full Papers →Everything you get with PYQs on GRADSCALE
Free Preview
Every question, the correct answer and a full explanation for any paper — no account needed.
No loginFull Papers
Attempt a complete past paper under a real exam timer — VARC, DILR and QA, exactly as it was administered.
Login to attemptSectional Practice
Attempt one section at a time when you know exactly which one needs focused, repeated exposure.
Login to attemptTopic-wise Practice
Every question tagged to one specific topic — like Para Summary or Time-Speed-Distance — pulled from every past paper at once.
Login to attemptPersonal Analytics
Track your accuracy by section and topic over time, and see exactly where your weakest areas actually are.
Requires loginBookmarks
Save any question you want to revisit later, with your own notes attached, instead of losing track of it.
Requires loginLeaderboard
See how your scores compare against other students practicing the same papers.
Requires loginProgress Reports
Download a PDF report of your PYQ performance — by paper, by section or by topic — to track over time.
Requires loginWhat are PYQs, exactly?
PYQ stands for Previous Year Questions — the actual questions that appeared in a past edition of an exam. For CAT, IPMAT, XAT and similar MBA entrance tests, this means the real paper a student sat for in a specific year and slot, made available for others to practice with afterward.
That distinction — real exam content versus a written simulation of one — is what makes PYQs valuable. A mock test is someone's best attempt at guessing what the exam will look like. A PYQ paper is what the exam actually looked like. Question-setters have patterns that repeat: certain topics come back most years, certain phrasings and trap answers recur, and the actual difficulty curve across a section is something you can only calibrate against by working through real papers.
This doesn't make mock tests useless — they're often better for volume and for topics that are under-represented in recent PYQs. But PYQs should be the anchor of serious preparation, not an afterthought.
Full papers, sectionals, or topic-wise?
There isn't one right way to work through PYQs — the three modes serve different goals:
- Full papers, attempted under a real timer, build exam stamina and force you to practice allocating time across VARC, DILR and QA the way you'll actually have to on exam day.
- Sectional attempts isolate one section at a time — useful once you know which section is your weak point and want focused, repeated exposure without the full three-hour commitment.
- Topic-wise practice goes narrower still — every question tagged to one specific topic, like Para Summary or Time-Speed-Distance, pulled from every past paper at once. This is the fastest way to fix a known, specific gap.
A reasonable default: topic-wise practice to close specific gaps as you find them, sectional attempts once a section feels ready for focused timing practice, and full papers on a regular cadence to test where you actually stand.