Helpful Preparation Tips For Bank Exams

By Author: Rayford Marks
Total Articles: 186
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Bank Examinations are conducted every year to recruit best talents to work for Public and Private Sector Banks. Bank jobs, that too a Public Sector Bank job is considered respectable and lucrative job in India. Hence, the competition to get in any bank is tough and it is getting even more tough by the day as more and more students are applying for these exams. An example of this is that approx. 400k student applied for Bank Clerical and PO exams (IBPS Bank Exam) last year for total job vacancies of approx. 40,000 in 20 different banks. Well that is 1 selection per 100 candidates that appeared in exam.
But do not get bogged down by the above data. In the end what always matter is your preparation and determination to get through. So, the question that comes in mind is how to start Preparation for Bank Exams? Well to start with always keep in mind (and try to live up to them…) the following points:
Tips For Bank Exam Preparation-
1) Analysis of Your Strength and Weaknesses: When you start preparing for exam, start at least 6 months before the exam date and check all type of questions that are asked in bank ...
... exam. This will help you in knowing what your strengths and weakness are. Over the period hone your strengths and work on your weaknesses. Eventually some of your weaknesses will turn into strengths.
2) Keep Practicing: Do not quit practicing when preparing for an exam. Continuous practice is the key to Preparation for Bank Exam. You may think that it won’t matter much as you have already prepared all the concerned areas. But whenever you stop practicing, it put you back by at least 2-3 questions in bank exam and that is enough to decide whether you are in or out…!. There are few sites online for bank exam preparation that provide you Free Online Test for Bank Exam Preparation, and one of them is ours, Examsfunda.in.
3) Never Give Up: Always keep this mantra in mind. Every time you are pushed back by a failure hit back even more strongly and wall between you and job will break eventually. You will always have more than one opportunity to get where you want to be as bank exams take place every year. For example, IBPS Bank PO Exam are conducted every year around September or October. There are other bank exams also taking place, one has to just keep tab of upcoming Bank Exams to know about them.
Now, when you start preparing for bank exam, first start with chapter wise preparation. This will help you to know about different types of questions asked in the exam. If you prepare only by way of solving Full length question papers, there is a very high probability that you may miss out on some topics and end up getting it in the exam. If you come across such questions in exam, there is a high chance that you are missing out on some easy marks. So always start with Chapter-wise preparation for Reasoning Aptitude, Quantitative Aptitude and English sections.
Preparation for General Awareness and Banking Awareness -
As far as General Awareness for Bank Exam is concerned one has to prepare at least last 6 months Current Affairs for Bank Exams. Recent trend shows that more questions are being asked from the latest two months before the exam date, so one should go through them more deeply.
As for Banking Awareness the questions are asked from a question pool limited to, say maybe, around 500-600. There may be some questions related to latest development in banking, but that will be covered by way of Current Affairs of last 6 months.
Preparation for Computer Awareness-
Same as in case of Banking Awareness, Computer Awareness has limited pool of questions of approx. 500 from which they ask the questions and some questions are based on latest development in banking. The questions asked in this section are mostly basic in nature.
Exam Pattern For Bank Exams–
From the year 2015, IBPS and SBI both has started Two Tier Written Exam Process whereby, first Preliminary Exam and then Main Exam followed by Group Discussion/Interview. Normally Bank Exam consists of four sections –
i) Reasoning Aptitude
ii) Quantitative Aptitude
iii) English
iv) General Awareness

The test is conducted usually for 120 minutes and consists of 200 questions.

Strategy For Bank Exam Preparation-
Now, we know what are the various sections in bank exam from which questions are asked and what is the bank exam pattern. So, we have 200 questions to solve in 120 minutes (As per current pattern).
The next step and most important of all is time management among all the sections. Well, how one distribute the time among sections is one’s own choice, but one should keep in mind to give sufficient time to each section as there is separate cut off for each section. Distribution should normally be such that you can provide some extra time to your weak section, which in turn means you should be good in your strong areas so as to solve those questions fast (That is why we said keep practicing……). The Overall cut off for IBPS Bank PO Exam 2014 are given below -
Over All Cut Off IBPS Bank PO Exam 2014 –
Scheduled Caste (SC): 70
Scheduled Tribe (ST): 56
Other Backward Classes (OBC): 80
General (Gen): 82
Hearing Impaired (HI): 36
Orthopedically Challenged (OC): 61
Visually Impaired (VI): 38

While looking at the above cut-offs one might feel that it is easy to get 41% (82 marks for General Category). Well, the answers is yes, but that is the minimum score and getting that much will only help you in getting through and making up the numbers of students who cleared Bank written exam. If you really want to make it through, for a post in any of the participating bank you have to aim much higher than that, say, 60% (especially if you want to be in a better bank). So, one’s target should be to score at least 40% in each section and overall 60% in IBPS Bank Exams. Now it doesn’t seems that easy a ask to do. So, always remember two things while giving any Bank Exam -
i) Try to score more in your strong areas. For weak sections attempt limited number of questions as attempting too many will lead to wastage of time and negative marking.
ii) Keep your accuracy level high. Higher accuracy (by higher accuracy we mean 85%-90% correct answers) will always help you get through as you have to attempt less number of questions for getting higher score.
So, how can one achieve the above two targets. Well, as we said earlier continuous practice is the funda for bank exams.

exam pattern for bank exam
current affairs for bank exam