CAT DILR Preparation 2026: If you’ve just opened a CAT DILR set and felt momentarily blank, don’t fret! Almost every serious CAT aspirant has had that moment, staring at DILR sets and wondering, “How is anyone supposed to solve this in 40 minutes?”
Don’t Panic, DILR is More Manageable Than You Think
Here’s the truth: You are not supposed to solve every DILR question, and as soon as you understand that, you might just increase your conversion odds.
DILR is one of those sections where smart preparation beats hard preparation every single time. The goal isn’t to brute-force every question; it’s to build the right kind of logical thinking, learn which sets to attempt, and walk out of the exam hall with a score that puts you comfortably in the 99th percentile. But before you get to strategy, you need to understand something more fundamental: what does a 99%ile score in DILR actually look like in numbers?
Also Read: How To improve CAT DILR Section in CAT 2026
Table of Contents
The Score vs. Percentile Reality: You Don’t Need to Attempt Everything
Take a look at the actual CAT DILR Score vs. Percentile data from the last eight years:
| Percentile | CAT 2025 | CAT 2024 | CAT 2023 | CAT 2022 | CAT 2021 | CAT 2020 | CAT 2019 | CAT 2018 |
| 99.5 | 34 | 37 | 28.5 | 37 | 40 | 50 | 69 | 58 |
| 99 | 30 | 33 | 25 | 33.5 | 35.5 | 44 | 63 | 51 |
| 95 | 23 | 22 | 17.5 | 22.5 | 24 | 30 | 43 | 41 |
| 90 | 17 | 19 | 13.5 | 17 | 17 | 23 | 34 | 34 |
| 80 | 12 | 11 | 9.5 | 11.5 | 12 | 16 | 23 | 24 |
Now let’s talk about what this data is actually telling you, because the numbers are far more reassuring than most students expect.
CAT 2025: A scaled score of just 34 was enough for 99.5%ile. That’s roughly 11-12 correct questions, which means students who scored roughly half the section still landed in the top 0.5% of all test takers. For 99%ile, around 10 correct answers were enough
CAT 2023: Perhaps the most striking, 99.5%ile required just 28.5 marks. Less than half the section, and you’re in the top 0.5% nationally.
So what does this mean practically? The CAT DILR section typically has around 20–24 questions. If you need roughly 30–34 marks for 99%ile in recent years, and each correct answer gives you +3 marks with -1 for wrong answers, you’re essentially looking at solving 2–3 sets accurately and stepping back.
DILR rewards selection and accuracy far more than speed and volume. Attempting a set you can’t crack not only wastes time, it also bleeds marks through negative scoring, too. That’s where Race to 99%ile makes a grand entrance, teaching you how to pick questions that increase your percentile, because CAT changes every year.
Also Read: Why starting early can get you 99%ile+ in CAT 2026
What Are You Actually Preparing For? The PYQ Pattern Problem
Here’s a question most CAT aspirants can’t answer confidently: which DILR topics have appeared most frequently across the last 7 years, and how many questions have each contributed to the paper?
The topic-wise distribution of CAT PYQs tells a very specific story. Certain topics show up almost every year and contribute a predictable number of questions. Others are rare, high-difficulty guests that most students are better off skipping entirely.
Understanding this distribution does two things for you. First, it tells you where to spend your preparation time. Second, and more importantly, it sharpens your set selection instinct on exam day.
The complete topic-wise PYQ breakdown, what’s appeared, how often, how many questions, and exactly how to use that to build your selection strategy, is what RT99 Session 3 maps out in detail. If you’ve been preparing without this picture, that session is where the missing piece clicks into place.
The Myths That Are Quietly Capping Your DILR Score
Bad strategy often starts with a belief that sounds reasonable on the surface. In DILR, a few specific myths are responsible for more lost percentile points than poor practice ever could be.
“DILR is always difficult.” This one is particularly damaging because it feels like a rational trade-off. But DILR is fundamentally about structured thinking and pattern recognition, both of which are trainable.
“Attempting all questions” The natural instinct is to try solving everything, but in CAT, that mindset can quietly eat away your score.
These are just two. There are others, around how to manage time within a set, when to abandon a set mid-attempt, and how to approach DILR in the first 5 minutes of the section, that quietly derail even well-prepared students.
RT99 Headstart 1 – Session 3 addresses all of these directly, with the prep strategies and solving techniques that go with each. Not as theory, but as actionable approaches you can take into your next mock.
Also read: Ideal Time for CAT Mock Tests 2026
Conclusion: DILR Doesn’t Need to Be Your Weak Spot
If there’s one thing the data and trends make clear, it’s that DILR is a section that responds to smart preparation. You don’t need to solve everything. You don’t need to be the fastest. You need to know what to attempt, how to approach it, and how to stay accurate under pressure.
That’s the gap RT99 Session 3 is designed to close, not by giving you just shortcuts, but by giving you the clarity and structure that makes every hour of your DILR preparation count from this point forward.
If DILR has been the section you’ve been hoping to figure out eventually, this is the right time to stop hoping and start building.
