Over 1500+ Vacancies

IBPS Clerk Prelims, IBPS Clerk Exam Preparation Tips: Preparation for any exam becomes very easy if one has a basic understanding of what is asked in the exam.

Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) has released an official notification inviting applications for the exam to fill up more than 1500+ vacancies of Clerks in the participating banks.

Tips for IBPS Clerk Exam Preparation

ibps clerk exam preparation

It is important to prepare for the main exam along with the preliminary exam. The best part of this exam is that the syllabus of both Prelims and Mains is almost same (except General/ Financial Awareness and Computer Aptitude). However, the difficulty level of Mains exam is higher.

Considering the past trend, around 20 lakh candidates are expected to appear in this exam which means the competition will be tough. However, this should not be a reason to despair as the level of questions asked will be of matriculation level, an average student should be able to crack the exam if he/she takes the right time and practices well. Two to two and a half months is enough time for a candidate to prepare for IBPS Clerk exam.

However, the important question here is how to prepare well?

Candidates carrying a maximum of 100 marks (one mark for each question) are asked to solve 100 questions in 60 minutes in the IBPS Clerk Prelims exam. There are three sections:

1. English language: 30 questions and candidates have to answer 20 minutes.
2. numerical ability: 35 questions and candidates have to answer 20 minutes.
3. Reasoning Ability: 35 questions and candidates get 20 minutes to answer them.

To qualify for the online main examination, candidates have to qualify in each of the three tests by securing cut-off marks. For each wrong answer, one-fourth of the marks assigned to that question or 0.25 will be deducted as penalty.

Read: IBPS Clerk Recruitment Notification: How to Apply & Other Details

The IBPS Clerk exam pattern is as follows…

English Language Section Pattern: In this section 5 to 10 questions from Reading Comprehension (RC) are always there in the exam in all the slots. Around 5 questions from each place of error and phrase substitution are also asked mostly in all the slots. Other types of questions asked in exams include: cloze test, parajumbles or sentence rearrangement, filling in the blanks, phrase substitution, matching columns, etc.

Quantitative Ability Section Pattern: Out of 35 questions asked in this section, 10 single questions are of quantitative aptitude type with questions on profit and loss, simple interest percentage, time, speed and distance, time and work etc. and compound interest. The remaining questions are in groups of five. In each slot of the exam, there is one or two groups on data interpretation. Candidates should be able to interpret bar graphs, pie charts etc. to solve these questions. Other types of questions asked in this section may include quadratic equations, missing numbers, finding out the odd one, etc.

Reasoning Section: Each slot consists of four sets (20) questions of analytical reasoning type consisting of questions on seating arrangement, data arrangement etc. Other types of questions in this section are: Puzzles, Blood Relations, Mathematical Inequality, Coding Decoding, Verbal Reasoning etc.

The questions asked in three sections are up to class 10 and an average student can crack this exam with consistent effort. There is no dearth of good study material for this exam and even intelligent student needs to practice if they want to crack the exam.

The preliminary examination is of qualifying nature and marks obtained in it will not be considered for preparation of final merit list.

The expected cut-off in IBPS Clerk Prelims exam varies from state to state but generally speaking one should try to score above 70.

Lastly, students must take a lot of mock tests (one daily) in IBPS Clerk Prelims Exam. Even if you fail to make it in one go, there are many similar exams in a year and candidates should not lose faith.