The CAT 2025 exam will take place on 30th November 2025. The Quantitative Aptitude section is a very important part of the exam. Profit and Loss is a topic that comes under the Arithmetic subsections of Quantitative Aptitude. This article highlights key details about the Profit and Loss topic for students’ reference. These include sample questions, the topic’s weightage and other key details.
CAT Profit and Loss Weightage
Before getting into the questions, it is very important for students to understand the weightage of the Profit and Loss topic in th CAT exam. Understanding the weightage of the section ensures students know how much of the topic to expect in the actual CAT exam. It also helps students prepare themselves for the CAT examination accordingly.
Profit and Loss comes under Arithmetic in the QA section for the CAT exam. The topic has a relatively smaller number of questions in comparison to other topics in the CAT exam. Here is an overview of the CAT Profit and Loss weightage for students’ reference:
Year | Weightage (in Number of Questions) |
2024 | 2 |
2023 | 1 |
2022 | 1 |
2021 | 3 |
2020 | 2 |
CAT Profit and Loss Questions
Provided below is an overview of some sample questions students can use when preparing for the Profit and Loss topic for the CAT examination. Using these questions to prepare for CAT can help in students being thorough for the topic and can boost a student’s score.
The CAT Profit and Loss sample questions are as follows:
Question Number | Question |
1 | Gita sells two objects A and B at the same price such that she makes a profit of 20% on object A and a loss of 10% on object B. If she increases the selling price such that objects A and B are still sold at an equal price and a profit of 10% is made on object B, then what will the profit made on object A be nearest to? |
2 | Jayant bought a certain number of white shirts at the rate of Rs 1000 per piece and a certain number of blue shirts at the rate of Rs 1125 per piece. For each shirt, he then set a fixed market price which was 25% higher than the average cost of all the shirts. He sold all the shirts at a discount of 10% and made a total profit of Rs.51000. If he bought both colors of shirts, then what is the maximum possible total number of shirts that he could have bought? |
3 | Anil, Bobby, and Chintu jointly invest in a business and agree to share the overall profit in proportion to their investments. Anil's share of investment is 70%. His share of profit decreases by & 420 if the overall profit goes down from 18% to 15%. Chintu's share of profit increases by & 80 if the overall profit goes up from 15% to 17%. What is the amount invested by Bobby? |
4 | On selling a pen at 5% loss and a book at 15% gain, Karim gains Rs. 7. If he sells the pen at 5% gain and the book at 10% gain, he gains Rs. 13. What is the cost price of the book in Rupees? |
5 | If a seller gives a discount of 15% on retail price, she still makes a profit of 2%. Which of the following ensures that she makes a profit of 20%? |
6 | Anil buys 12 toys and labels each with the same selling price. He sells 8 toys initially at a 20% discount on the labeled price. Then he sells the remaining 4 toys at an additional 25% discount on the discounted price. Thus, he gets a total of Rs 2112, and makes a 10% profit. With no discounts,what is his percentage of the profit? |
7 | A merchant mixes two types of rice costing ₹40/kg and ₹60/kg in the ratio 3:2 and sells the mixture at ₹54/kg. What is his profit percentage? |
Also Read: CAT 2025 Linear Arrangements Preparation
CAT Profit and Loss Answers
Provided below is an overview of the answers for the provided sample questions for students’ preparations for the CAT examination. The answers are as follows:
Question Number | Question |
1 | 47% |
2 | 407 |
3 | 2000 |
4 | 80 |
5 | Selling at the Retail Price |
6 | 50 |
7 | 20% |
CAT Profit and Loss Tips
Preparing for the Profit and Loss topic for the CAT examination can be intimidating for students. However, here are some general tips students can keep in mind when preparing for the topic to be better equipped when giving the Quantitative Aptitude section of the CAT exam.
The tips are as follows:
- Mock Tests:Practicing using timed-mock tests are key for scoring well on the CAT exam. Mock tests ensure students have a thorough understanding and can help develop speed as well as accuracy. Timing mock tests also helps in vastly improving solving speed for Profit and Loss questions on the CAT exam. They also help in simulating the actual exam experience for CAT which can vastly boost a student’s performance when giving the examination.
- Thorough Your Understanding: With enough practice and developing a strong understanding of the basics of Profit and Loss as well as its related questions on the CAT exam, students can easily score high marks on this topic of the exam. The questions for this topic are not very tough and can help in ensuring high scores on the exam. With less volume on the paper, students can also not worry about having to deal with too many questions pertaining to Profit and Loss on the exam as well.
Students Can Also Read: Will the CAT Registration Process be Extended?