SET Books 2026: Check out best books for exam preparation

Aspirants should start preparing for the SET exam at least six months before the test date. SET preparation requires planning thus one must start early. They can also join coaching institutes for focused preparation. Starting early will also help you assess that whether you need to join a coaching institute or not. Divide your preparation into three phases - 1. Covering the syllabus 2. Practicing mock tests, sample questions and 3. Revision.

The SET syllabus includes the following topics:

General English: Parajumbles, Sentence Completion, Grammar, Comprehension Passages, Synonyms and Antonyms, etc.

Logical Reasoning: Tables, Graphs, Pie Charts, Blood Relation, Seating Arrangement, Strong and Weak Arguments, and Syllogism

Quantitative Aptitude: Geometry, Algebra Number System Arithmetic, Mensuration etc.

General Awareness: Companies and Founders, Awards, Books and Authors, Sports, Politics, Current Affairs, etc.

You can read the following SET books for exam preparation:

• A New Approach to Reasoning by BS Sijawali
• Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for the CAT by Nishit K Sinha
• Multi-Dimensional Reasoning by Mishra Kumar and Dr Lal
• Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis
• High School English Grammar and Composition by Wren & Martin
• How to Prepare for Quantitative Aptitude for the CAT by Arun Sharma
• Class 9 and Class 10 NCERT Mathematics books
• Quantitative Aptitude by R. S Aggarwal
• Manorama Year Book

The General English section of the SET exam is usually easier than the other two sections. This section of the SET question paper is based on English usage and Grammar. The General English section aims to assess the candidate’s hold on language comprehension, grammar and vocabulary. The section examines the candidates on how well they comprehend the given data, analyse the question, vocabulary, grammar, etc.

SET is a national-level entrance exam conducted for admission to various undergraduate courses. SET 2026 will be conducted in the computer-based test mode. The difficulty level of the SET exam is usually easy to moderate. But, a few questions might trick your mind and can be time-consuming.

General Knowledge and Analytical and Logical Reasoning are easier than the Quantitative Aptitude section. In 2025, according to the students who appeared for the SET session 1 exam, the SET exam was moderate. The General English section was the easiest of all four sections. The Quantitative Aptitude section was the toughest, and the other two sections were moderate to easy. The overall difficulty level of the SET question paper was moderate. Students who appeared for the SET 2025 session 2 exam said that the overall difficulty level was easy. Again, the General English section was the easiest. In this session, the Analytical and Logical Reasoning section was also easy to moderate. The Quant section was easy to moderate, and the General Knowledge section was difficult.

The Logical Reasoning section of the SET exam is usually moderately difficult. Some of the recommended books for the Logical Reasoning section are as follows: 

1. Guide to Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning by Pearson Publications
2. A Modern Approach to Logical Reasoning by R. S Aggarwal
3. Logical and Analytical Ability by Ashok Gupta.
4. Analytical Reasoning by MK Pandey
5. A New Approach to Reasoning by BS Sijawali and Sijawali
6. Multi-dimensional Reasoning by Mishra Kumar and Dr. Lal
7. Logical and Analytical Reasoning by K Gupta
8. A Modern Approach to Verbal and Non-Verbal Reasoning by RS Aggarwal.

SET exam preparation requires the best books for SET exam. Listed below are some of the best books for SET BBA exam:

General English: Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis, High School English Grammar and Composition by Wren & Martin, Objective General English by SP Bakshi

General Awareness: Manorama Yearbook, Pratiyogita Darpan, Lucent's General Knowledge, Current Affairs Magazines (e.g., Competition Success Review, Pratiyogita Darpan)

Quantitative Aptitude: Quantitative Aptitude for Competitive Examinations by RS Aggarwal, Fast Track Objective Arithmetic by Rajesh Verma, NCERT Mathematics textbooks of Class 9 and 10

Analytical & Logical Reasoning: A Modern Approach to Verbal & Non-Verbal Reasoning by RS Aggarwal, Logical Reasoning and Data Interpretation for CAT by Nishit K. Sinha, 

The best books for Quantitative Aptitude preparation of SET exam are listed below. These are the recommended books by experts. 

1. NCERT Mathematics books (Class 9-10)
2. Quantitative Aptitude for Competitive Examinations by Abhijit Guha
3. Quantitative Aptitude by RS Aggarwal

The NCERT Mathematics book is recommended for SET preparation because it is the best source of building or revisiting the fundamentals of Algebra Geometry, Trigonometry Mensuration Number Systems and Arithmetic. The NCERT books are extremely helpful to students from non-Engineering background. Quantitative Aptitude books by Arun Sharma, Abhijit Guha, Nishit Sinha and RS Aggarwal are the main books for SET preparation as well as other BBA and MBA entrance exams. These books cover all the topics at intermediate and advanced level. They also have many sample questions of easy, moderate and high difficulty levels for practice.