What IIM Indore Looks for in CAT RC

1. Philosophy Is Never Absent

In every IIM Indore VARC paper, at least one passage engages with philosophical ideas. CAT 2020 had passages on anarchist political philosophy and the philosophical debate between Hobbes and Rousseau on human nature. These are not casual philosophy references. They are dense, argument-driven passages that require the reader to track a philosophical position across multiple paragraphs and identify where the author agrees, disagrees or qualifies.

For CAT 2026, expect at least one passage that asks you to navigate a philosophical argument. The question types will be inference-heavy, testing whether you understood the author's actual position rather than just the topic being discussed.

2. Science Through a Philosophical or Policy Lens

IIM Indore does not set straightforward science passages. Their science passages come with an argumentative twist. In CAT 2020, the biotechnology passage was not about the science of biotechnology but about the policy challenge of regulating it. The elephant seal migration passage was not a natural history article but a passage about how scientists interpret animal behaviour.

The pattern is consistent: science as a subject raises a harder question about knowledge, regulation, interpretation or ethics. That harder question is what the passage is really about.

3. Language and Grammar as a Subject

IIM Indore included a passage on the importance of grammar in CAT 2020 Slot 1. A passage about language and punctuation appeared across their papers. This is not coincidence. IIM Indore appears to believe that students preparing for a verbal exam should encounter passages that make language itself the subject of inquiry.

These passages are often deceptively accessible. The topic feels familiar but the argument is subtle. The questions test whether you read for argument rather than topic.

4. History With an Argument Embedded

The Tang Empire currency passage in CAT 2020 was not a history lesson. It was a passage about how monetary systems shape political power. IIM Indore uses historical settings to frame contemporary arguments about economics, power and institutions.

If you read history passages looking for facts and dates, you will miss the argumentative core that the questions actually test.

5. Inference-Heavy Questions With Close Options

Every analysis of IIM Indore's VARC papers identifies the same characteristic: close options with double negatives and inference-heavy questions. Very few factual recall questions appear. Most questions ask what the author implies, what the author would agree with, or what can be concluded from a specific paragraph. The wrong options are often partially correct, capturing a real idea from the passage but misrepresenting its scope or the author's attitude toward it.

This is the hardest kind of RC for students who have been trained to locate answers in the text. IIM Indore rewards readers who understood the argument, not just readers who found the relevant sentence.

What This Means for Your Preparation

Reading broadly from philosophy, political theory, science policy and cultural criticism is not optional for CAT 2026. It is the specific preparation IIM Indore's paper demands. GRADFLIX essays are written in exactly this genre, argumentative, dense, multi-layered, with RC questions that test inference and author attitude rather than factual recall.