Alerts and Updates for CDAC C-CAT (Common Admission Test)

Section A covers English, quantitative aptitude, reasoning, computer fundamentals and programming concepts. Section B covers C programming, data structures, object-oriented programming in C++, operating systems, networking and the basics of big data and artificial intelligence. Section C covers computer architecture, digital electronics and microprocessors. The courses are described by C-DAC as full-time programmes of about 24 weeks and 1,200 hours, including 300 hours of self-study.

Everything below the August 2026 batch line is a projection. Exam Cheat Sheets states plainly that C-DAC has not officially announced the February 2027 admission schedule and that its dates are expected timelines based on previous cycles. The authoritative document is the admission booklet C-DAC publishes on its PG Diploma admission page at the start of each cycle.

The decision that shapes a C-CAT result is made at payment, not in the exam hall. Paying Rs 1,550 buys Sections A and B; paying Rs 1,750 buys Sections A, B and C. That choice fixes which diploma courses you can be considered for during seat allocation, and it cannot be revised after the window closes. Candidates who pick the cheaper option and then find their preferred course needs Section C have removed it from their own list.

On the reported scheme each correct answer is worth plus 3, each wrong answer minus 1, and an unattempted question zero. A blind guess among four options therefore has an expected value of zero: one correct at plus 3 against three wrong at minus 1. Guessing only pays once you can eliminate at least one option, at which point the expected value turns positive. With 50 questions per section and one hour per section, that is about seventy seconds per question, which is enough time to eliminate on most items but not enough to derive from first principles. The discipline that raises scores is recognising within twenty seconds whether an item is eliminable, and abandoning it cleanly if it is not.

Every candidate sits Section A, which covers English, quantitative aptitude, reasoning, computer fundamentals and programming concepts. Because it is common to all categories, it is also where the rank distribution is tightest and where a few marks move you past a large number of people. It is the cheapest section to improve, since aptitude and English respond to timed practice rather than to new subject knowledge. Candidates from a computer science background routinely under-prepare it, assuming their technical sections will carry them, and then lose places to candidates who treated Section A as a scoring opportunity rather than a warm-up.

Section C covers computer architecture, digital electronics and microprocessors, and it is the section that opens C-DAC's embedded and hardware-leaning diplomas rather than the pure software ones. Candidates from electronics, telecommunications, electrical and instrumentation backgrounds are usually better placed here than computer science graduates, and paying the extra two hundred rupees widens their option list considerably at almost no cost. The reverse also holds: a computer science graduate with no digital electronics since second year should be honest about whether adding Section C improves the outcome or simply adds a third hour in which marks can be lost.

In the August 2026 cycle, registration opened on 26 May, closed on 23 June, the exam ran on 4 and 5 July and the batch started on 24 August. That is under three months from the opening of applications to the first day of class, with roughly a fortnight between the exam and the result. There is no second chance inside a cycle. If you miss the registration close you wait roughly five months for the next window. Anyone targeting a specific batch should have eligibility documents and degree percentages verified before the window opens, because the window itself is about four weeks.

Clearing C-CAT produces a rank card, not a seat. Preferences for course and training centre are submitted through C-DAC's counselling and seat allocation login after results, and allocation runs on rank against declared capacity at each centre. The practical implication is that course choice and centre choice interact: a moderate rank may secure a popular course at a less-subscribed centre, or a less-subscribed course at a preferred centre, but rarely both. Decide in advance which of the two matters more to you, and order preferences accordingly, rather than filling the list by reputation alone on the day.