The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) exam season has just started and the IBPS PO exam is scheduled to start on October 16 followed by the main exam, a month later. Similarly, the dates for IBPS clerk and IBPS RRB are also out and the exams are scheduled to take place by the end of December. In total, these exams are being conducted for over 10,000 vacancies in various public sector banks. Additionally, many private banks such as ICICI have also started following this pattern and are also expected to come out with their recruitment programmes. As the first exam is less than a month away, here are some important tips to keep in mind while entering the last phase of your preparation:
Don’t neglect any subject
Since the pre-exam covers only quantitative aptitude, reasoning and English, many students neglect computer and general knowledge at this stage, only to realise later that they can’t master them in the limited time between the pre-exam and the main exam. Understanding computers and general knowledge from the start is important as these sections play an important role in the final selection .
GK is a major section in the main exam having a weightage of 40 out of 200 marks. The section does not require a lot of preparation, but it is something that needs some time allotted for it. Spend a couple of hours daily on current events; you can use various websites and apps or refer to newspapers. Make your own notes on key happenings, financial awareness and GK. Writing things down will help you remember them.
Computer can be a high scoring subject. Make sure you cover the complete theory. Questions in this section are often repeated. You can practise the previous years’ papers.
The main exam has individual cutoff for each subject and missing out on the cutoff in any subject can result in losing your chance to clear the exam.
Analyse your performance and
Last year, the cutoff for the pre-exam was 37.5 (out of 100), while the cutoff for main was ( 76 out of 200). To make sure that you have a fair chance of getting a job offer, you should ideally score above 95 in the main exam.
At this stage, you should also be able to identify what your strong and weak areas are and start building an exam strategy that is suitable to you.
Ensure you solve enough mock tests at least two or three tests a week for the pre exam, while you should solve at least one mock test per week for the main exam. Try to solve these papers within the time available in the exam. This will help you master your exam strategy and also understand what questions you are spending too much time on.
Changes in exam pattern
There is a lot of discussion about the expected difficulty level because the SBI PO exam was much harder this time than last year. Instead of worrying about how the exam will be, make sure you are well prepared for all topics.
Try practising a few questions that are relatively hard compared to what is usually asked. Practising from books for CAT and previous years’ papers would be a good idea.
The writer is CEO and Co-founder, Gradeup
