The preliminary examination for probationary officers turned out to be moderately difficult this year, says Aditya Johari.
ALSO READ: Expert tips to crack the IBPS Bank PO exam
Every year, the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) organises a preliminary examination for inducting new probationary officers (PO) across public sector banks in the country.
This year, the IBPS PO Prelims 2015 exam commenced October 3, 2015 and will continue till October 11.
Since IBPS has changed the recruitment process this year, there was lot of confusion among aspirants.
This analysis of the exam and scoring pattern will definitely help the students who are going to appear in the exam over the weekend.
The pattern
Overall IBPS PO Prelims 2015 exam is very much similar to SBI PO Prelims in terms of difficulty and pattern.
Which means that you can continue to refer to the State Bank of India Probationary Officer preliminary papers to prepare for the exam.
The overall difficulty level of the exam is moderate.
To clear the exam, attempting anything between 49 to 58 questions should be good.
As mentioned before, the exam consists of 100 questions for 100 marks.
The duration of the exam is 60 minutes across three sections. Here's the breakup of sections:
- English Language (30 questions, 30 marks)
- Quantitative Aptitude (35 questions, 35 marks)
- Reasoning (35 questions, 35 marks)
Let's take a detailed look at the sections
Reasoning
The Reasoning section was comparatively easier this year.
If you have practiced enough, you could have easily attempted more than 17 questions, with fair accuracy.
Below is the topic wise breakup of the section
- Coding Decoding: 5 marks
- Puzzle: 10 marks
- Inequalities: 5 marks
- Syllogism: 5 marks
- Seating Arrangement: 5 marks
- Miscellaneous: 5 marks
Quantitative Aptitude
As I had mentioned in my previous write-up, this section turned out to be difficult as compared to other two sections.
The questions were time consuming and you'd have to attempt between 16 to 25 questions to ace this section.
If you have already appeared for the exam, remember that your accuracy will help you score better.
Below is the topic wise breakup of the section
- Profit Loss, Time, Speed and Distance, Mixture, Age: 10 marks
- Series: 5 marks
- Simplification: 5 marks
- Quadratic Equations: 5 marks
- Data Interpretation: 10 marks
English
The English/ Verbal section was fairly easy this year as well.
Any student with decent preparation must have been able to attempt 18 to 25 questions.
Because of the easy nature of the questions, you can use this section to increase your overall score.
Here's a topic wise breakup of the section:
- Reading Comprehension: 10 marks
- Jumble Sentences: 5 marks
- Spotting the error: 5 marks
- Cloze Passage: 5 marks
- Fill in the blanks: 5 marks
As I mentioned in my last post, I'd suggest that aspirants focus on prioritising their time to solve the areas s/he is confident of, following it up with the weaker sections so as to optimise their overall score.
The author Aditya Johari is general manager MockBank.com, a Bengaluru based online test preparation company for government/PSU jobs.
Lead image used for representational purposes only. Credit: Sahil Salvi
