Preparation For Bank Exam – Tips & Trick

Preparation for Bank Exam – Bank Probationary Officer (PO) Exam like SBI, IBPS (PO) and other banks exam is still a very lucrative career despite the emergence of so many new avenues and career opportunities in recent times. Particularly in the time of the recent global meltdown and after massive job cuts in the private sector, bank jobs in the public sector jobs seem a safe bet, as one gets a decent salary and also recognition in the society. I am writing this article for my friends who are really serious about cracking Bank Probationary Officer Exams.

I have seen that most of the people who are providing guidance on bank exams do not really understand the requirement of this exam as they have actually never appeared or succeeded in such types of exams and are providing guidance just for the sake of money. So I thought that it would be correct to share my experiences about Preparation For Bank Exam with all of you as it may prove helpful to all of you.

Preparation for Bank Exam: Overview

Friends, I had a close association with these sorts of exams as I prepared for bank PO exams for almost two years, initially for one year I could not do anything in these exams as I was simply filling up the form and was doing preparation without any planning and approach. But soon I realized that such an approach is of no use and is not going to work. I was losing hope and was about to give up, but fortunately, by sheer luck, I got a call for one PO interview, although I could not finally make it, it has given me an indication that this test can be cleared.

From that point onwards, I started real serious preparation for bank exam and started with some strategy in mind, next year I again appeared in 7-8 Bank POs exams and I not only got success in the written part but also cleared each and every interview by virtue of good preparation and scoring very high marks in the written part. Only after getting that success, I realise that had I prepared well with some sort of strategy earlier I could have cleared the SBI (PO), IBPS (PO), RRB much before.

How Should I Preparation for Bank Exams

So for all of you, I would like to suggest to you the strategy which I feel is the best, although you can always choose your own strategy, some words of advice I would like to give the tips of preparation for Bank Exam.

You know friends, Bank PO exams consist of four sections namely

• General Awareness
• English
• Quantitative Aptitude and
• Reasoning

One should do very good preparation for all the sections but still if one has to rate the importance of all sections, it should be like this, Reasoning should be given the topmost priority, thereafter General Awareness, Quantitative Aptitude and English respectively. What I have experienced over the year is that if one has scored anything above 65% in all the sections then he or she has a fair chance of getting an interview call. And for almost sure-shot selection a score above 70% is good enough.

Although it will also depend upon the difficulty level of the question paper and the number of vacancies but normally cut-offs revolve around such percentages. English is qualifying so you do not need to attempt all the questions, the objective here should only be to qualify the paper, however nowadays some banks have started to count the marks of the English section also, so this factor should be checked before appearing in the exam. For the rest of the sections, one should aim at scoring very high as a well-prepared candidate can score more than 80% in General Awareness and Quantitative papers.

For General Awareness you have to devote some time on a regular basis as it mainly consists of current affairs. The quantitative part should not be a problem as generally. The level of math is not very hard, the only thing required here is regular practice and a good understanding of concepts.

The reasoning is the most crucial section and can decide the fate of your exam as most of the candidates are having a problem with it and they find it tough to finish the section on time. The only remedy for this section is to prepare religiously and understand the concept as most of the time you will see that more or less similar questions based on certain concepts appear in different PO exams.

If you work on those concepts you will not only have a very high percentage of accuracy but also be able to finish them quickly. You can always ask me in case you have any problem with any particular section. So the objective should be to have very good time management for your Bank PO exams and one should focus on regular preparation of all four sections. Do not underestimate any section and keep in your mind that you have to clear each and every section.

Preparation of Banking

The time which I used to give on different sections and the order of attempting papers was 10-15 minutes for the General Knowledge paper, 20 minutes for English, 35-40 minutes on Math and 60 minutes on Reasoning during the mock test.

In the normal course, I used to score above 85% in both GK and Math papers and above 70% in reasoning papers. Although in the last few exams I scored as high as 90% in the reasoning paper that was after a lot of practice and experience, although that much score is not required as I told you that anything above or near 70% should do. Please also remember if you have done well in the written part, the interview will be a cakewalk for you.

I will again emphasise that you can score very high marks in the General Awareness paper with serious preparation. As questions are based on current affairs and what you need to prepare are current affairs for 6-7 months, I am emphasizing on General Awareness paper more because this is one paper which can boost your scoring in without devoting extra time during the course of the exam.

In all other sections, you have to devote extra time to improve your marks but in this section, you can always solve the paper quickly as if you are aware of the answers it will not going to take extra time of yours. Just to help boost your scoring we will provide you with quality material on General Awareness in a regular manner. So always try to score very high marks in General Awareness paper, try to solve Maths paper in given time with 80-90% accuracy and try to attempt Reasoning paper in a given time, with 100% accuracy.

Tips for Preparation of Bank Exam

Also learn the art of skipping difficult questions as they will only waste your precious time. If you can attain such levels you can easily get through. So start preparing in a systematic manner, mediocre preparation is not going to help because papers are designed in such a manner. I am not discussing the descriptive part as I don’t think any preparation is required for this part and a decent student should always be able to qualify that part as it is qualifying in nature. Also, keep an eye on the exam pattern of every bank as there are slight differences in the exam pattern of different banks.

Time Management for bank exam preparation

We see many students around us who are preparing for the bank exam for a very long time for the Preparation for Bank Exam yet they have not achieved success, the reason is that they are not concentrating on the right things. They seem busy most of the time but it does not necessarily mean that they make optimum utilization of their time. So there is a great need for effective Time Management for Preparation for bank exam..

We are always emphasizing time management as we have learned the experience that it is one of the important elements of the “Key to Success”. If somebody is making efforts and yet he is not getting desired results then it definitely not an ideal situation. Once we have started the preparation our objective should be clear and whatever may be the level of competition, we should always have one target in mind i.e. final selection. With effective time management, we can focus more on our preparation which would help us to achieve our objectives.

You may agree with us that a very little time of ours is being spent on top priority activities and more on activities such as phone calls, coffee breaks, roaming here and there etc. There is nothing wrong with these activities but we need to think that do we really have time to spend on such activities; we need to analyze what are the activities which are a waste of time and what need more time. Try to cut down the time spent on useless activities or stop doing them altogether at least for some time till you achieve your objective. Once you have managed your time, you will find your efficiency level rising and the end result is that you will be an achiever.

Some of you may feel that it is too harsh to always talk about managing your time and reduce the time spent on things which are not so important. Dear Friends, you need to realize that this is a crucial juncture of your career and you need to make some special efforts to beat the competition. Therefore it is imperative for you to put some extraordinary efforts at least in this phase of life, if you can make it possible we can assure you that you will be able to sail smoothly in your life later on. It’s now or never, the choice is yours.

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