How to Prepare for XAT 2026: Tips from Toppers

XAT 2026 preparation plan has to be concept driven, practice intensive and time sensitive. The difficulty level of XAT is high and its pattern is slightly different from other MBA entrance exams. You need to have complete knowledge of XAT syllabus and be able to solve all types of questions. Know here some topper tips to prepare for XAT 2026.

XAT preparation 2026 - Xavier Aptitude Test or XAT is considered one of the toughest MBA entrance exams in India, on par with CAT. It can be described as a mix of concept driven, practice intensive and environment sensitive questions. The unconventionality of the XAT question paper, its unique marking scheme and the number of applicants make it a tough exam to crack. The key to excel in the XAT exam is not only studying from XAT preparation books but also thoroughly understanding the question paper and choosing questions wisely during the test. The most important part of XAT preparation is timely completion of the syllabus and practice of mock tests. Read this article for toppers tips for XAT 2026 preparation.

How to Prepare for XAT 2026?

XAT 2026 exam will be held on January 4, 2026 so now is the time to speed up. For cracking XAT exam, it is important to know the fundamentals. By now, you must have completed the XAT 2026 syllabus and must already be practicing questions. This year, candidates may find it easier to perform in XAT as the exam pattern has been simplified. There are a few changes in the XAT exam pattern. There is no essay writing.The time duration of XAT has also been reduced from 210 minutes to 180 minutes. Check the sectional break up and marking scheme of XAT below:

Know complete XAT syllabus 2026

How to prepare for XAT Exam 2026: Tips from Toppers

Let’s first understand what is the difference between XAT and other MBA entrance exams?

XAT is more inclined towards application than rote learning. XAT exam has a section which is not there in other management exams – Decision Making. This section brings in a measure of creativity and test the knowledge one has built over time and not by cramming. The Verbal Ability section too, has unique type of Reading Comprehension passages including a poem.

Now, let's look at key tips from previous years' XAT toppers.

Siddharth Lilani, XAT 2023, 99.64 percentile

"I believe that every candidate is different and there is no formula to crack any exam or interview. Working hard is definitely essential and so is consistency. But in the end, results matter and how they come becomes less relevant (unless they come from unfair means). So, every candidate must work on developing a process that works well for them - physically, psychologically, and intellectually." Read full interview

Farzan Shaikh, XAT 2021, 99.95 percentile

"I started preparing on my own (thought NITians don’t need help), quants from books like Arun Sharma, Sarvesh Sharma. I solved DM questions in XAT using past year papers. I Solved 3-4 DILR sets daily. Actively read and summarised articles, books and essays from Aeon, The Economist, WSJ, etc. in my own language to improve my reading comprehension." Read full interview

 Suresh Jadia, XAT 2020, 99.31 percentile

"I started XAT preparation seriously by mid-August or September and realised that there wasn’t enough time to go through the entire syllabus thoroughly … so I went for the mock analysis approach which means I gave as many mock as I could and invested even more time in analysing those mock."

"I focused more on Verbal Ability and Decision Making for which I developed more of an intuitive approach where in, in RC passages and Decision Making the answers should come from one’s own inference."

Sarthak Kumar, XAT 2019, 99.95 percentile

"My strategy was to solve as many questions as possible and give as many mocks as possible. One thing I always believed was to stick to my strength which was Quantitative Ability. So I focused more on that but at the same time made sure not to neglect the decision making and verbal sections."

"To prepare for Decision Making section, my strategy was to focus on previous years’ XAT questions, I would match the answers with their answer keys and understand the rationale behind those answers."

Aditya Ganesh, XAT 2018, 99.4 percentile

"I decided to take the test quite late so I had two months to prepare, so I decided that I really have to focus on my strengths. I first strategised and covered all the concepts that were necessary for the examination. After that, I focused mainly on practicing as many questions as I could. I created a conducive environment at my home so that I could take a lot of XAT mock tests and using this I could figure out my strengths and weaknesses."

"In decision making you need to think of solutions which are practical from business sense and ethical," he added.

"On exam day strategy, Aditya said, "In a competitive exam like XAT, you need to ensure that you convert all the questions that you know. By maximising all the questions that you know, you can ensure that you can get a good percentile."

Neha Jaggannath, XAT 2017, 98.76 percentile

Verbal Ability section

"For Verbal Ability section, you need to acquaint yourself with reading of variety of articles. Secondly, you could familiarise yourself with basics of Grammar like figures of speech, root words etc. Apart from that solving questions from sample papers or mock tests will suffice."

Decision Making

"Since you don’t have any precedent to follow viz. this section, the key to crack this section of XAT exam is solve as many previous years papers and mock test series as you can, because these will help you familiarise yourself with the kind of questions that are asked which are mostly common sense based."

Quantitative Ability

"Improving your calculation speed is always the key, because it helps in the examination and also improves you mental agility in general. Other than that, keep a note of the important formulae. During the exam, it is important to know which formula to use for which question."

General Knowledge

"I brushed up on my current affairs knowledge. I made sure to keep reading newspapers and apps on a regular basis. Apart from this, there are certain key points about our nation or international world that aren’t really current affairs but topics you should be knowing. So brushing up on some static GK also helps."

Also Read:

• How to Prepare for XAT 2025 in 6 months
• How to Prepare for XAT 2025 in 3 months
• How to Prepare for XAT 2025 in 1 month

Rajas Yotikar, XAT 2017, 99.98 percentile

“In the last month, there is not much left to prepare. You just have to get in the zone and keep solving the mocks. You don’t have to do anything special in the last one month. In the last month, I stopped solving questions on subjects and switched to mock tests.”

Priyadarshi Dasgupta, XAT 2017, 99.72 percentile

“For the Quant section, my strategy was to read through all the questions once and figure out which questions will take a larger amount of time and which questions I could do quickly. So I would target the questions that I could do quickly first, because that would give me a chance to maximise my score and I would come to questions that required more time.”

“My strategy for Verbal Ability section was to attempt the questions as quickly as possible after one reading then re-read my questions. I found this useful as there were many details that I might have missed in my first reading. So I read them a number of times to catch these details."

"Decision Making is unique to the XAT exam and there isn’t a lot of material to prepare from, so I gave a lot of mock tests in which they would give him sectional cut offs so that he would know my strong and weak areas."

"Keeping in touch with current affairs helped me a lot in GK section as most of the questions were from current affairs."

Also Read:

• XAT Exam Day Guidelines
• Last Minute Tips for XAT

XAT Exam Preparation 2026: Section Wise Tips

Given below is the brief description of every section of XAT question paper for candidates to have a basic understanding of each. To make a XAT 2026 preparation plan, it is important that they know the basics first. 

• XAT 2026 preparation: Decision Making

Decision making section is the most unique section of XAT. It is practise intensive and requires business aptitude for solving ethical dilemmas, financial issues, general management scenarios, company management issues, etc. To prepare for this section, one needs to practice a variety of sample questions. One needs to know that this sections requires application of logic to determine the correct option.

Also read: How to Prepare for XAT Decision Making

• XAT 2026 preparation: Verbal & Logical Ability

Reading Comprehension has historically dominated the Verbal section of XAT. The major part of this section is about reasoning skills, RC and vocabulary-based questions, thus requires quick reading and ample mock-test practice to keep up with time and speed. There's always one poem in XAT as RC. 

Also read: How to prepare for XAT Verbal & Logical Ability

• XAT 2026 preparation: Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

Focus areas in Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation section of XAT syllabus are Arithmetic, Geometry, Number Systems, P&C, Probability and Functions. The key here is getting the concepts right, building upon it and applying them accurately. Practice of mental calculation will come in handy while attempting this section.

Also read: How to prepare for XAT Quantitative Ability & Data Interpretation

• XAT 2026 preparation: General Knowledge

A lot of stress is on Current Affairs. The questions range from economics and politics to sports and literature. Reading newspaper regularly and a brushing up of Static GK will help you sail through this section of XAT 2026 exam.

Also Read:

• XAT exam analysis of previous years
• Download previous years XAT question papers PDFs 

Best Books for XAT Preparation 2026

Below listed are some of the best books for XAT exam preparation: