Best GMAT Books and Mock Tests 2026–2027

When you decide to take the GMAT for your UAE MBA or MS application, you will always ask yourself the question: which books and mock tests are really worth your time and money? The people who make the GMAT, the Graduate Management Admission Council, make their study guides and practice exams. Some other companies also make tests based on the GMAT. You do not need to buy all of the GMAT study guides and mock tests. A focused set of two to three resources, used properly, will take you further than a shelf full of books you never finish.

This section breaks down the Official GMAT Guide series, the official GMAT Focus Edition practice exams, the most commonly used third-party mock test providers and, because this is the question Indian test-takers search for most, a full rundown of what's genuinely free.

All USD prices in this section are converted to INR at an indicative rate of ₹95/USD (August 2026). Actual conversion will vary slightly with the exchange rate on the day you pay.

This is where most students overspend or underprepare, either buying far more mocks than they'll ever complete or relying only on free tests that don't reflect the real GMAT's adaptive algorithm.

Official GMAT Practice Exams (mba.com)

GMAC sells six official practice exams directly through mba.com: two are free, and four are paid. All six run on the same computer-adaptive algorithm, timing and retired-question pool as the actual GMAT, which makes them the most accurate score predictors available.

This is what most Indian students look for when they want to prepare for the GMAT without spending a lot of money. Here are some things you can use to start your GMAT preparation.

The people who make the GMAT (GMAC) have some good free resources:

• GMAT Official Starter Kit and Practice Exams 1 and 2:The GMAT Mini Quiz has nine real GMAT questions from each section and tells you the answers. The Starter Kit has two full-length practice exams that change based on how you do and about 70 more sample questions that cover every part of the GMAT Focus Edition. These two exams run on the same computer-adaptive algorithm used on test day and generate scores on the official GMAT Focus scale, making them the single best free predictor of your real score. No GMAT registration is required to access them.
• GMAT Official 6-Week Study Planner:A free, self-guided worksheet to help you structure your prep timeline, useful whether or not you're working to a six-week window.

From third-party providers:

• GMAT Club: a free full adaptive test, plus a large bank of free forum-quiz questions, an error log and performance analytics, all accessible without a paid plan.
• Manhattan Prep and Kaplan: one full-length practice test is available.
• e-GMAT, Magoosh and Target Test Prep: each offers a free trial period with lesson and question access, useful for comparing teaching styles before committing to a paid course.

The honest sequencing advice: take the two free official mocks from mba.com first since they're the most accurate benchmark available and cost nothing. When you get to that point, you have to think about whether you want to pay for practice tests. This decision depends on the score you want to get and how many practice tests you really have time to go over carefully. People who help you get ready for tests usually say you should try to do four to six practice tests before the actual test day. They say you should space them out so you have time to look at the things you're not good at. GMAC itself doesn't publish an official recommended number.

If you're comparing your GMAT Focus Edition score against a university's published Classic GMAT average, which is common at schools mid-transition, don't compare the raw numbers directly. GMAC explicitly advises against direct numerical comparison between Focus Edition scores (205–805) and the old GMAT (200–800), since the new scale was deliberately shifted so a 645 on the Focus Edition isn't mistaken for a classic 650. Use GMAC's own concordance table instead, which links the two scales by percentile:

Sourced from GMAC's own published Score Concordance Tables. GMAC's full table often maps a range of scores rather than a single number, because of how the underlying percentile computation works, so treat the table above as a simplified guide and check GMAC's complete concordance tables, including section-level conversions, before quoting an exact figure.