BasicsCAT Previous-Year Questions

9 previous-year questions on Basics from CAT, with full solutions. Practise free — check answers as you go; sign in to save your progress.

Back
9 questions

Basics · CAT PYQs

CAT 2023 Slot 1 · QA
Q1.

The amount of job that Amal, Sunil and Kamal can individually do in a day, are in harmonic progression. Kamal takes twice as much time as Amal to do the same amount of job. If Amal and Sunil work for 4 days and 9 days, respectively, Kamal needs to work for 16 days to finish the remaining job. Then the number of days Sunil will take to finish the job working alone, is

CAT 2023 Slot 3 · QA
Q2.

Gautam and Suhani, working together, can finish a job in 20 days. If Gautam does only 60% of his usual work on a day, Suhani must do 150% of her usual work on that day to exactly make up for it. Then, the number of days required by the faster worker to complete the job working alone is

CAT 2021 Slot 1 · QA
Q3.

Amar, Akbar and Anthony are working on a project. Working together Amar and Akbar can complete the project in 1 year, Akbar and Anthony can complete in 16 months, Anthony and Amar can complete in 2 years. If the person who is neither the fastest nor the slowest works alone, the time in months he will take to complete the project is

CAT 2020 Slot 2 · QA
Q4.

John takes twice as much time as Jack to finish a job. Jack and Jim together take one-thirds of the time to finish the job than John takes working alone. Moreover, in order to finish the job, John takes three days more than that taken by three of them working together. In how many days will Jim finish the job working alone?

CAT 2019 Slot 1 · QA
Q5.

At their usual efficiency levels, A and B together finish a task in 12 days. If A had worked half as efficiently as she usually does, and B had worked thrice as efficiently as he usually does, the task would have been completed in 9 days. How many days would A take to finish the task if she works alone at her usual efficiency?

CAT 2001 · QA
Q6.

A can complete a piece of work in 4 days. B takes double the time taken by A, C takes double that of B, and D takes double that of C to complete the same task. They are paired in groups of two each. One pair takes two thirds the time needed by the second pair to complete the work. Which is the first pair?

CAT 2001 · QA
Q7.

There's a lot of work in preparing a birthday dinner. Even after the turkey is in oven, there are still the potatoes and gravy, yams, salad, and cranberries, not to mention setting the table. Three friends, Asit, Arnold, and Afzal, work together to get all of these chores done. The time it takes them to do the work together is six hours less than Asit would have taken working alone, one hour less than Arnold would have taken, and half the time Afzal would have taken working alone.

How long did it take them to do these chores working together?

CAT 1998 · QA
Q8.

A company has a job to prepare certain number cans and there are three machines A, B and C for this job. A can complete the job in 3 days, B can complete the job in 4 days, and C can complete the job in 6 days. How many days will the company take to complete the job if all the machines are used simultaneously?

CAT 1991 · QA
Passage / Data

Answer the following questions based on the information given below:

There were a hundred schools in a town. Of these, the number of schools having a play – ground was 30, and these schools had neither a library nor a laboratory. The number of schools having a laboratory alone was twice the number of those having a library only. The number of schools having a laboratory as  well as a library was one fourth the number of those having a laboratory alone. The number of schools  having either a laboratory or a library or both was 35.

Q9.

Three machines, A, B and C can be used to produce a product. Machine A will take 60 hours to produce a million units. Machine B is twice as fast as Machine A. Machine C will take the same amount of time to produce a million units as A and B running together. How much time will be required to produce a million units if all the three machines are used simultaneously? (in hous)