Abhishek
Abhishek Dhawan
Assistant Manager – Editorial Content
Updated on Sep 30, 2025 11:05 IST

The most crucial stages for MBA admission includes Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI) round. Here are 32 most commonly asked questions in the PI round.

Personal Interview questions

Personal Interview Questions: For MBA admission, candidates must appear in the Group Discussion and Personal Interview (GD/PI) rounds of B-Schools. Preparing for top MBA entrance exams is not as difficult as preparing for GD/PI because every exam has a syllabus from which questions are asked. One only needs to devote a good number of months to cover the MBA exam syllabus. However, for GD/PI, there is no predefined syllabus or pattern. Candidates may be given any topic in GD and asked any question during the PI round.

It takes confidence and presence of mind to clear these rounds as one doesn't know what will be asked and what will be the most appropriate answer. While preparing for MBA admission, candidates often wonder what the top questions to prepare for clearing the PI round are.

While preparing for MBA entrance exams is a priority now. It is equally important to keep preparing for the PI-WAT round. WAT-PI round of the IIMs and top B-Schools are conducted between February and April, so it is wise to start preparation alongside the exams. Questions in PI round of MBA colleges are mostly connected to the candidate's academics or job/internship that they mention in their resume.

Chances of facing questions based on hobbies, past jobs, projects and areas of interest are very high in the personal interview round for MBA admission. However, it is not easy to guess what questions will be asked in a PI round of a B-School. But there are a few very common questions that are asked at almost all kinds of interviews. Candidates preparing for MBA admission must prepare these common PI questions well.

Top 32 Personal Interview Questions for MBA Admissions

A personal interview round for MBA admission is a personality assessment test in which the admission panel has a good opportunity to know a candidate and the candidate has a good opportunity to present their best aspects. It is more of an interpersonal interaction which includes professional as well as personal questions. Here are the most commonly asked questions in MBA personal interview round for admission:

  1. Tell us something about yourself.
  2. Why do you think should we give you admission in our college?
  3. What are your key skills/ greatest strengths?
  4. What is your greatest weakness?
  5. What is your greatest achievement?
  6. Where do you see yourself five years down the line?
  7. What are your career goals?
  8. What are your short-term goals?
  9. What are your long-term goals?
  10. Why do you want to join this College/B-school?
  11. Why MBA?
  12. Why marketing/ finance/ etc. specialisation?
  13. Why this particular programme?
  14. What are your hobbies and interests?
  15. Who is your role model?
  16. Who inspires you?
  17. What is the difference between a good manager and a good leader?
  18. Why should we admit you?
  19. What are some reasons to reject your application?
  20. Walk me through your resume/profile.
  21. What is your biggest failure or challenge?
  22. How will you contribute to the class if we choose you?
  23. How will you contribute to the campus if we choose you?
  24. How will you add value to the campus if chosen?
  25. What is your expectation from this MBA programme?
  26. How do you deal with failures?
  27. How do you deal with criticism?
  28. What have you learnt from your failures?
  29. Discuss a situation when you were a leader.
  30. Where else have you applied? What other calls have you received?
  31. What are the newspaper headings that grabbed your attention?
  32. Do you want to ask or know anything (about the college)?

Also Read: Personal Interviews: 5 Situations That May Stump You

 

GD/PI Experience of IIM Students

Check out the articles below to know how these students converted IIM Interview calls. 

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IIM Ahmedabad

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Omkar Mukherjee

IIM Calcutta

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IIM Shillong

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IIM Kozhikode

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IIM Kozhikode

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Ankur Parmar

IIM Kozhikode

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IIM Bangalore

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Mayank

IIM Bangalore

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IIM Calcutta

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Aditi Agarwal

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IIM Indore

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Nishant Shah

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Biswanath Chakraborty

IIM Bangalore

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Achintya Bhattacharya

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Shubham Varshney

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Shubham Ranka

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Q:   What is the structure of CAT question paper?
A:

Till 2014, there were only two sections in CAT. Quantitative Aptitude was clubbed with Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning was clubbed with Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension. In 2015, the Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning were clubbed together and Quantitative Aptitude and Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension made two individual sections. Since 2015, the sectional segregation has remained the same but the number of questions have come down from 100 to 66. The exam duration has also been reduced. Until 2019, the CAT exam was of 180 minutes and the total number of questions were 100. However, in 2020, the question paper structure was revised due to COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the total number of questions came down to 76. In 2021 and 2022, the number of questions were further lowered to 66. For the last two years, CAT is conducted for 2 hours, and the number of questions is 66. In CAT 2024 however, the number of questions were increased to 68. 

The latest CAT question paper structure is: Total questions: 68 Number of sections: 3 Order of sections - 1. VARC 2. DILR 3. Quantitative Aptitude Sectional time limit: 40 minutes VARC questions: 24 DILR questions: 22 Quantitative Aptitude questions: 22.

 

Q:   Which CAT slot has the toughest question paper?
A:
There is no pattern to which CAT question paper can be the toughest. The CAT question paper of every slot has unique questions. The examination body strives to maintain the same difficulty level of the paper across all slots but it may happen that a question can be more difficult from another. It is seen that, to keep the uniqueness of the question paper intact, the examination authority also changes the topic wise weightage a little bit across the exam slots. In most of the previous years, it is seen that the morning slot of the CAT exam is tougher than the rest two. However, candidates must not worry about the difficulty level of the slots as, the scores of all the candidates are normalised on a common scale to root out the possibility of advantage or disadvantage to any student due to difference in difficulty level. To know how the CAT scores are normalised, read this article: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/articles/understanding-cat-normalization-process-blogId-9386.
Q:   What are the benefits of solving CAT question papers?
A:

Solving the CAT question paper is very important from preparation point of view. Since CAT is a speed based test where candidates have to read long passages, tables and charts, do multiple calculations and solve tricky puzzles, one needs to have prior practice of the same. The CAT mock tests serve this purpose. However, to know what type of passages and puzzles are there in the CAT exam, you need to solve previous years' question papers. Some of the benefits of solving previous years' CAT question paper are:

  1. With the help of previous year's CAT question paper, you can understand the latest CAT exam pattern and marking scheme
  2.  Practicing CAT question papers improves speed and accuracy in solving the questions, which is critical to a speed based exam like CAT
  3. Practicing CAT question papers improves time management skills as you would get to know which type of questions take how much time. 
  4. When you practice CAT question papers, you gain confidence that you can solve all types of CAT questions. This confidence helps in performing better in the exam.
Q:   From where can I download CAT question papers?
A:

CAT question papers are released within a week of the exam in the form of a PDF as a response sheet and answer key. Candidates who have appeared for the test are able to access the CAT question paper and answer key. The question paper of every slot is released on the same day along with candidate response sheet and official answer to all question. If any candidate needs previous year CAT question papers for preparation purpose, then they can download them from Shiksha website. We have hosted last five years' CAT question papers for aspirants to download and practice. These official CAT question papers are available for download free. You can download the CAT question paper PDFs at this link: https://www.shiksha.com/mba/cat-exam-question-papers Candidates must check and practice the latest CAT question paper to know the latest exam pattern and difficulty level.

Q:   How many RC questions does CAT have?
A:

The CAT VARC section is dominated by RC questions. Out of 24 questions about 14-16 are based on Reading Comprehension passages and the rest of them are based on parajumbles, para completion, etc.

CAT has about 12-16 RC question. Since, it is not mandatory to solve all the questions, candidates can maximize their scores by leaving out the questions related to the passage they find the toughest. There is negative marking in CAT so candidates must ensure that they mark only the correct options or do not mark any option at all.

Q:   What was the key change in CAT question paper 2024?
A:

The key change in CAT question paper 2024 was increase in number of questions in DLIR section. Till 2023, the DILR section used to have 20 questions. In 2024, it had 22 questions. The time limit for it was the same and no other section had less questions. Which means, in CAT 2024, candidates had to attempt 68 questions instead of 66 to solve in the same time (120 minutes). DILR sectional time limit was 40 minutes as in previous years. There was no other change in CAT 2024, the difficulty level was same as previous years. 

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About the Author
author-image
Abhishek Dhawan
Assistant Manager – Editorial Content
With a creative soul, Abhishek is inclined towards anything in the creative space be it drawing, painting, craft, or writing. He has been working in the ed-tech industry since he started his career. Besides creative Read Full Bio
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