List of Important CAT Preparation Books

A lot of candidates ask me about the important CAT (Common Admission Test) Preparation books to be referred while preparing for CAT.

In this post, I will give you complete list of important books for CAT Preparation. Also, I will share some good resources/material which will help you a lot in your CAT preparation.

I have included links to most of the books & resources. This list is the latest list of books updated for CAT 2019 preparation.

If you are preparing for CAT or planning to start soon, you can read my detailed article here: How to prepare for CAT

List of Important CAT Preparation Books

The All-in-one

If you are not willing to go through multiple reviews for CAT preparation books, you may go for this bundled package of 4 books for complete CAT preparation by Arun Sharma And Meenakshi Upadhyay.

Continue reading below for topic-wise list of books from multiple authors as well as some additional books.

Quantitative Ability

There are two good books for Quantitative Ability. Practicing only one of these is enough for your preparation.

How to Prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT by Arun Sharma

This is the most popular book for quant preparation. It is a very good book with questions segregated into different difficulty levels.

Quantitative Aptitude Quantum CAT For Admission into IIMs by Sarvesh K. Verma

This is another good book. It was suggested to me by a friend and I referred to this book for my Quant preparation.

Verbal Ability

This is the most important section of CAT which becomes the reason for unexpected CAT scores. Following books should be referred for this section.

Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis

This is the most important book of your entire CAT preparation. Read it from end-to-end as per the instructions in the book and your vocab would never be the same.

How to Prepare for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for CAT by Arun Sharma & Meenakshi Upadhyay

This is a good book for Verbal Ability and can be used as the base reference.

Wiley’s ExamXpert Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension for CAT 2019

This is another popular book for verbal and reading comprehension preparation. You should go only for one of these two books.

Apart from these, for Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension section, you must have excellent English language skills which can be developed through regular reading. I have written a detailed article about this which you can read here: How to Develop the Habit of Reading

Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning

DI & LR are very scoring sections of CAT and should be handled very efficiently. I have listed three books here- two individual books for DI & LR each, and one book for both DI & LR. Do not get all three. Either get first two books, or the third one.

How to Prepare for Data Interpretation for the CAT by Arun Sharma

This book by Arun Sharma is a popular choice for DI.

How to Prepare for Logical Reasoning for the CAT by Arun Sharma

This is a book on Logical Reasoning by Arun Sharma.

Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for the CAT by Nishit K. Sinha

This is a good book which covers both the Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning. You can practice DI & LR questions from this book.

Previous Year’s Papers

Once you get through the basics, start practicing previous year’s papers. It will give you a good idea about the exam. You can choose any book as the questions are going to be the same. The following is the latest available book containing last 24 years CAT solved papers.

24 years CAT Topic-wise Solved Papers (2017-1994) with 6 Online Practice Sets 11th edition

Study Material

If you complete these books, you may also refer to the study material of any one good coaching institute. No need to collect material from multiple institutes. You can even take someone’s old material which may be equally useful.

For quant, study material may not be of much use to you as you will get a lot of questions in various books. But the study material may prove beneficial for Verbal Ability, Data Interpretation & Logical Reasoning. Try to practice all the questions from these topics.

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I hope this information would prove useful to you and you will crack the CAT and secure a seat in an IIM.

All The Best.