Reasoning ability
- ✓Puzzles and seating arrangements dominate - practise them daily; they carry the most marks.
- ✓Syllogisms, inequalities, coding-decoding and blood relations are quick, reliable points.
Quant & data interpretation
- ✓DI (tables, bar/pie/line graphs, caselets) is heavily weighted - learn to approximate before calculating.
- ✓Arithmetic (percentages, ratios, time & work) and number series.
- ✓Simplification and approximation for fast, sure marks.
English & banking awareness
English tests reading comprehension, error-spotting and para-jumbles - practise steadily. Banking awareness (RBI functions, banking terms, financial current affairs) is factual and best revised in short frequent rounds.
Across sections, speed and accuracy together decide prelims. Practise timed and learn to skip time-traps.
Practice this now
The exam pattern: prelims and mains
Bank recruitment for roles like IBPS and SBI PO runs in stages, and each rewards a different balance. Prelims is a fast, qualifying screen - typically English, Reasoning Ability and Quantitative Aptitude, around 100 marks in an hour, usually with sectional time limits of about 20 minutes each and negative marking for wrong answers.
Mains is where selection is decided: harder Reasoning and Computer Aptitude, Data Analysis & Interpretation, General/Economy/Banking Awareness and English, often with a descriptive writing test, followed by an interview. The takeaway is to clear prelims on pure speed and accuracy, but build the depth - especially in DI and puzzles - that mains and the interview demand.
Practice this now
Sample bank exam questions (with answers)
These reflect the speed-first style of bank prelims. Try to solve each in under a minute, then check the approach - the shortcut matters as much as the answer.
Quant: What is 25% of 480 + 15% of 200?
150. A quarter of 480 is 120, and 15% of 200 is 30, so 120 + 30 = 150. Recognising 25% as one-quarter is the kind of instant conversion that saves seconds.
Reasoning: A man walks 5 km north, turns right and walks 3 km, then turns right and walks 5 km. How far is he from the start?
3 km. The 5 km north and the later 5 km south cancel, leaving him 3 km east of where he started. Sketching the path makes this obvious and prevents errors.
Data Interpretation: If a value rises from 200 to 250, what is the percentage increase?
25%. The increase is 50, and 50/200 x 100 = 25%. Percentage-change speed is the core DI skill, so make this calculation automatic.
Banking Awareness: What is the repo rate?
The rate at which the RBI lends short-term funds to commercial banks against securities. Raising it makes borrowing costlier and is used to help control inflation - a staple banking-awareness concept.
Reasoning: Find the next term in the series AZ, BY, CX, ?
DW. The first letters move forward (A, B, C, D) while the second letters move backward (Z, Y, X, W). Letter-series questions reward spotting two independent patterns at once.
Practice this now
A study plan for bank exams
Speed is a trained habit, so the plan below front-loads daily drilling of the highest-weight question types and layers awareness on top.
- ✓Daily: a set of reasoning puzzles and a DI set under a timer, plus a short banking-awareness and current-affairs round.
- ✓Daily English: reading comprehension, cloze tests and error-spotting to keep the section quick and reliable.
- ✓Practise simplification and approximation every day - estimating before calculating is the single biggest speed lever in Quant and DI.
- ✓Weekly: a full prelims mock with strict sectional timing, followed by analysis of where you lost time or fell for traps.
- ✓Closer to the exam: add mains-level DI and puzzle sets and, where required, descriptive writing practice.
Practice this now
Common bank exam mistakes to avoid
In a paper decided by seconds, the costliest errors are strategic, not conceptual. Fixing these habits often adds more marks than another round of study.
- ✓Calculating Data Interpretation fully instead of approximating - the single fastest way to run out of time.
- ✓Attempting questions in strict order rather than scanning for the easy, high-return ones first.
- ✓Ignoring sectional time limits in practice, then mismanaging them under pressure in the real prelims.
- ✓Leaving banking awareness until the end and forfeiting fast, factual marks that need only revision.
- ✓Taking mocks without analysing them, so weak areas and recurring traps never actually get fixed.