5 Things IIM Indore RC Passages Have in Common

1. The Passage Is Always an Argument

IIM Indore does not set passages that merely present information. Every passage they have set across 2013, 2014 and 2020 makes an argument. The author has a position, develops it across paragraphs, addresses possible objections and arrives at a conclusion. Even the science passages, the one on elephant seal migration, the one on biotechnology regulation, are not straightforward accounts of facts. They argue for a particular way of understanding or interpreting those facts.

The practical implication: if you finish reading an IIM Indore passage and you cannot state the author's position in one sentence, you have not understood the passage. Reading for argument, not for content, is the foundational skill their passages test.

2. The Topic Is Never the Subject

IIM Indore passages use a topic, anarchism, currency, grammar, human nature, as a vehicle for a larger argument. The passage about Tang Dynasty currency was not about Tang Dynasty currency. It was about how monetary systems concentrate and distribute political power. The passage about grammar was not about grammatical rules. It was about how shared conventions create the conditions for social coordination.

Students who read for topic rather than argument will answer the questions incorrectly even if they understood every sentence of the passage. The questions always test the argument beneath the topic.

3. Philosophy Appears in Every Paper

IIM Indore has set at least one philosophy or political philosophy passage in every edition of CAT they have conducted. In CAT 2020, they set two: one on anarchist political thought and one on the Hobbes-Rousseau debate on human nature. In previous editions, passages engaging with philosophical ideas in science, ethics and political theory appeared consistently.

This is not surprising. IIM Indore is known for an intellectually rigorous approach to management education. Their RC passages reflect the expectation that MBA students should be comfortable with abstract, philosophical reasoning. If you find philosophy passages difficult, you have found your single most important preparation priority for CAT 2026.

4. The Wrong Options Are Almost Right

Every analysis of IIM Indore's CAT papers identifies the same problem: students who understood the passage still struggle with the questions because the wrong options are constructed to be almost correct. They capture a real idea from the passage but misrepresent its scope, reverse the author's attitude toward it, or apply it to the wrong part of the argument.

Generic elimination strategy, "this option is clearly wrong", does not work with IIM Indore questions. You need to be able to name exactly what is wrong with each option: too broad, too narrow, reversal, outside the passage, detail substitution. This level of precision requires practice with passages and questions of equivalent difficulty.

5. Inference Is the Primary Skill

IIM Indore tests inference more than any other skill in RC. Not factual recall. Not main idea in its simplest form. Inference: what the author implies but does not state, what can be logically concluded from the argument as a whole, what the author's attitude toward a specific idea reveals about their broader position.

The difference between a student who scores 95th percentile in VARC and one who scores 85th percentile is almost entirely inference skill. Factual recall is easy. Summary and main idea are learnable. Inference at the level IIM Indore tests it requires months of practice with argumentative, dense reading.

There is no shortcut. Read daily. Read argument-driven non-fiction. Read GRADFLIX.