There’s a strange kind of temptation in the CAT exam. The timer is ticking, your heart is pounding, and the voice in your head says: “Just attempt more. More attempts = more marks, right?” It feels logical. After all, if you can attempt 90% of the paper, surely you’re in the 99 percentile club?

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: over-attempting might actually be pulling you down instead of lifting you. The CAT isn’t just about how many questions you answer; it’s about how many you answer right.

The Speed Trap

Think about it. You’re in the middle of VARC. You finish one RC set, and instead of pausing to double-check your answers, you rush into the next one because you want to “maximise attempts.” You skim questions, half-read answer choices, and lock in an option that “sounds” right. In the moment, it feels efficient. But once the scores come out, you realise that four out of those eight attempts are wrong.

The speed trap is seductive because CAT rewards both speed and accuracy, but between the two, accuracy always wins. A candidate with 14 attempts and 12 correct will outscore someone with 24 attempts and 10 correct. 

Negative Marking Is Ruthless

CAT doesn’t forgive reckless guessing. That minus one looks tiny on the surface, but add up five or six of them, and suddenly your raw score has taken a serious hit. Over-attempting often leads to carelessness. You click options without full confidence, hoping that probability will save you. But CAT isn’t a lottery. It’s a test of judgment. Every wrong attempt is not just a miss; it’s a penalty. 

When Confidence Turns into Overconfidence

Many students over-attempt because they confuse confidence with overconfidence. “I’ve prepared for months, so I should be able to solve everything,” they think. But the CAT paper isn’t designed for you to solve everything. It’s designed to filter. Some questions are deliberately there to eat up your time.

The real topper mindset is not “I’ll solve everything.” It’s “I’ll solve everything worth solving.” That means letting go of ego and skipping questions you are not sure of.

The Psychological Toll

Over-attempting doesn’t just cost you marks. It costs you peace of mind during the test. Imagine this: you attempt 28 questions in Quant, but deep down you’re unsure about 12 of them. That uncertainty starts to gnaw at your focus. 

In the next section, you’re distracted, doubting yourself, replaying your guesses. One bad choice snowballs into an entire bad section. On the other hand, attempting fewer but carefully chosen questions leaves you calmer, more composed, and sharper as the exam progresses.

Quality Over Quantity

Here’s the mantra every CAT aspirant needs tattooed in their mind: quality beats quantity. Attempting fewer questions with higher accuracy almost always yields a better percentile than throwing darts at the wall. You don’t get extra points for attempting the entire paper; you get points for precision.

Learning to Leave Questions

One of the hardest skills in CAT prep is not solving questions; it’s leaving them. It feels wrong to skip. Your ego screams: “What if it was actually easy?” But restraint is power. Every time you leave a potential trap untouched, you’re protecting your percentile. Skipping is not a weakness; it’s a strategy.

Over-attempting is like overeating at a buffet. It feels satisfying in the moment, but later you regret it. The CAT is not about proving you can touch every dish on the table; it’s about savouring the right ones with care.

You need to attempt wisely. That’s what separates the panic-driven candidate from the percentile-climber.