SBI PO Exam 2021 Eligibility: Now a few weeks are left for the State Bank of India Probationary Officer Recruitment 2021 (SBI PO Recruitment 2021) exam. The preliminary examination of its first phase can be held in the last week of November, while the second phase will be held in December 2021. After this the interview round will be conducted in the second or third week of February 2021.
SBI is the most reputed banking institution in the country, with which it is the dream of banking students to work with. In such a situation, you will have to work hard to be successful in this recruitment.
Selection Process
If you want to become a Probationary Officer (PO) then you have to go through 3 stages. Which includes Prelims Exam, Mains Exam and GD & Interview. SBI PO Prelims exam is the first stage of the recruitment process. Only the candidates who clear this paper will appear for SBI Mains. After that there is GD and interview.
PO Exam Pattern
Prelims Exam
This exam is conducted in online mode. Questions are asked from English Language, Quantitative Ability and Reasoning Ability. The total number of questions in this will be 100. There will be 30 questions in English language and 35 questions each in Quantitative Ability and Reasoning Ability. One mark will be awarded for each question and 0.25 marks will be deducted for each wrong answer. The total duration of this exam is 1 hour.
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Mains Exam
Mains exam is conducted in 2 parts. The first part consists of an objective test and the second a descriptive test. The first part consists of 4 subject questions, which include Reasoning Ability and Computer Aptitude, Data Analysis, English Language and General Knowledge. There will be a total of 155 questions in it. 45 questions will be asked from Reasoning Ability and Computer Aptitude, 35 questions from Data Analysis, 35 questions from English Language and 40 questions from General Knowledge. This exam is of 3 hours. After this there is a descriptive test test, in which letter writing and essay writing related to English language is done. The candidates are given 30 minutes for this. Each question is of 25 marks.
GD and interview
Candidates with higher marks in both the earlier exams will be given first preference for GD and Interview round. While the GD round is of 20 marks, the interview round is of 30 marks.
Section-Wise Topics & Preparation
English language
Cracking the English language is not considered very difficult. So it should be prepared first. It is a test of grammar, vocabulary and reading skills. Students should build a good foundation of English grammar and constantly practice questions on sentence rearrangement, idioms and phrases, error spotting, sentence correction etc. Vocabulary is tested using questions on synonyms, antonyms, fill in the blanks, error detection, etc. Maintaining a list of difficult words to read and revise from various sources helps the candidates to perform well. Good reading speed will help you to score well in comprehension questions.
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Quantitative Aptitude
Quantitative aptitude is a test of translating statements into numbers or mathematical equations and solving them. Apart from this, it also tests the speed and accuracy of the candidates. The difficulty level of this section is moderate to difficult as compared to other sections, so it is extremely important to prioritize questions in the first attempt to save time. Questions are asked from topics like probability, profit and loss, simple and compound interest, time and distance, data interpretation, etc.
Reasoning Ability
Reasoning section is considered very scoring in the prelims exam. If you have prepared well, you can easily score 30 per cent marks in this section. Puzzle and Seating Arrangement questions have maximum importance in this section, around 20 questions are asked in this section. Apart from these two topics, the reasoning section includes some other important topics like- Coding Decoding, Inequality, Syllogism, Blood Relations, Direction and Distance, Order and Ranking, Alphanumeric Series, Input-Output etc. These topics are easy, so their basics can be learned within a month. The common mistake many students make in this is that they keep practicing puzzles and seating arrangement questions, but not other subjects, as they are considered easy. They forget that solving easy questions early will give them more time to solve difficult ones.