In the time of the recession, which is slowly showing signs of recoveries, the one sector that continued to offer huge job opportunity in India was Indian Banking sector. If you had gone through my previous blog posts, you would have found that more than 7 out of 10 blog posts were made for the jobs offered by the Indian Banks.
This blog post is therefore being made to analyse exam pattern of various banking exams to arrive at the conclusion that banking exam patterns are similar – whether it is for the officer level (Probationary Officer, Management Trainee, Management Executives etc.) or even for the clerical level.
All the bank exams conducts selection process in two stages – Written exam and GD-cum-Interview. In some banks (like for SBI), the Written exam is again held in two stages – Prelims & Mains. But irrespective of the banks, following four objective questions papers were always found to be asked in the bank exams:
1.0 Test of Reasoning
2.0 English Language
3.0 Quantitative Aptitude
4.0 General Awareness.
Also, in most of the bank exams, in the written test where descriptive paper is also asked (in addition to the objective questions papers), the subject is “Descriptive Test in English”.
Therefore, as you would find that Bank exams are so similar, you can just prepare yourself thoroughly on the above areas and appear in all bank exams, with minor extra-preparation like for any additional paper like: Marketing Knowledge, Computer Knowledge, Specialist IT paper etc.
With this in mind, I had therefore published a comprehensive
list of 35 Bank Recruitment websites through the blog post titled:
Bank Recruitment Notification and Result websites, which contained links to the recruitment pages of 22 Public Sector Banks and 13 Private Sector Banks. After you make your preparation for the bank exams, keep checking those websites periodically to find if any recruitment notification has been published.
To support my claim that bank exams are so similar, I am giving below the synopsis of some Bank exam patterns (collected from my previous blog posts), so that you can yourself find the similarity in bank exams.
SBI Probationary Officers (PO) Exam Pattern:
The selection is conducted through a three-tier selection process:
Tier-I : Preliminary Exam: 2 hour duration (objective type examination)
Tier-II : Mains Exam : 3 hour duration (objective type - 2 hour, Descriptive type-1 hour)
Tier-III : Group Discussion & Interview.
Tier-I (Preliminary Exam) is a screening examination only. You need to secure minimum 40th percentile in each of the four tests (Test of Reasoning, Quantitative Aptitude, General Awareness/Computer Knowledge, English Language) in the preliminary examination and also need to score an aggregate 40% (35% for SC/ST/PWD) marks to be invited for the main test (Tier II).
In Tier-II (Mains Exam), you need to score minimum 40th percentile in each of the four objective type tests (Test of Reasoning, Data Analysis and Interpretation, Marketing Knowledge, Test of English Language) and in the descriptive paper with aggregate 40% (35% for SC/ST/PWD) marks. You also need to be ranked sufficiently high in main examination to be called for the Tier-II exam (Group Discussion and Interview).
In Tier-III (Group Discussion and Interview), you need to score minimum 40% (35% for SC/ST/PWD) aggregate marks i.e. Group Discussion and Interview put together to be eligible for selection.
IOB PO Exam Pattern:
IOB PO exam consists of two stages: Written test followed by Personal Interview for those selected in the written test.
There are two types of tests in IOB PO written exam: Objective Test (200 marks) & Descriptive Test (100 marks). The mark you score in Descriptive paper is purely for qualifying purpose only. It would not be counted for Merit Ranking. Also, in the Objective paper, test of English language is for ‘Qualifying purpose’ only.
Let us go into more details of these tests:
Objective Test Pattern of IOB PO exam:
It has 225 Questions to be answered in 135 minutes with total 200 marks. The sections within it are:
Test of Reasoning Ability 75
Test of Quantitative Aptitude 50
Test of General Awareness 50
Test of English Language 50
But as stated above “Test of English Language” is for ‘Qualifying purpose’ only and hence the rest of 175 questions constitute the 200 marks. You need to secure minimum 40% (35% for reserved category) marks in each of these tests individually.
On top of it, your Descriptive Test paper would be evaluated only if you rank in Objective Test merit list is good – Descriptive Test papers of only those within 5 times the vacancy for General category (i.e. within 2915) and within 7 times the vacancy for Reserved category (i.e. within 4669) would be evaluated.
Descriptive Test Pattern of IOB PO exam:
There are 5 compulsory questions of 100 total marks to be answered in 60 minutes. Descriptive Test paper is designed to test your Language composition, clarity of thoughts and brevity, higher order cognitive abilities, organisation of ideas in a logical coherent manner and above all: your written communication skill.
UBI PO Exam Pattern:
UBI PO exam consists of two stages: Written test followed by Personal Interview for those selected in the written test. Final selection is made on the basis of aggregate marks obtained by you in both of the written test & Interview.
There are two types of tests in UBI PO written exam: Objective Test & Descriptive Test.
Let us go into more details of these tests:
Objective Test Pattern of UBI PO exam:
UBI PO Objective test consists of following four sections:
Reasoning Ability,
Quantitative Aptitude,
General Awareness &
English Language.
Descriptive Test Pattern of UBI PO exam:
UBI Descriptive Paper consists of General Topic questions for Probationary Officers and Professional Knowledge/Subject for Specialist Officers.
Andhra Bank PO exam pattern:
Andhra Bank PO exam consists of two stages: Written test followed by Personal Interview for those selected in the written test. Final selection is made on the basis of aggregate marks obtained by you in both of the written test & Interview.
There are two types of tests in Andhra Bank PO written exam: Objective Test & Descriptive Test. However Descriptive Test is only of qualifying nature and the marks obtained in the Descriptive Test is not counted for deciding the merit.
Let us go into more details of these tests:
Objective Test Pattern of Andhra Bank PO exam:
Andhra Bank PO Objective test consists of following four sections:
Reasoning Ability,
Quantitative Aptitude,
General Awareness &
English Language.
You will have the option to answer the objective test in Hindi or English except the Test on English Language, which has to be answered in English only
Cut-offs would be decided on the relative performance of candidates in each of above four sections. On top of it, you would have to score minimum 40% marks (35% for SC/ST/PWD candidates) in aggregate i.e. with all four sections taken together.
There is negative marking for wrong answers – so make your guesses wisely!
Descriptive Test Pattern of Andhra Bank PO exam:
Andhra Bank notification does not spell out what type of questions would be asked in Descriptive Test. But it should be similar to IOB & SBI PO exam descriptive paper which tests your Language composition, clarity of thoughts and brevity, higher order cognitive abilities, organisation of ideas in a logical coherent manner and above all: your written communication skill. In the IOB & SBI PO exam descriptive paper, 5 compulsory questions of 100 total marks are to be answered in 60 minutes.
ICICI PO Exam pattern:
The selection process is 3-tiered:
1.0 Aptitude Test.
2.0 Group Discussion (also called as Group Task)..
3.0 Interview.
After selection, for the successful students, ICICI also conducts Psychometric Profiling.
Question pattern for Aptitude Test (Written) of ICICI PO exam:
Aptitude Test of ICICI consists of following pattern:
Section 1: Verbal Reasoning (30 Questions in 10 Mins) Analogy, Comprehension
Section 2: Numerical Reasoning (20 Questions in 30 Mins)
Section 3: Figurative Questions (20 Questions in10 Mins)
Section 4: Logical Reasoning (25 Questions in 20 Mins)
Data Interpretation in 10 Questions
Data sufficiency in 15 Questions.
PNB Management Trainee Exam pattern:
As said, bank MT are almost the same as a bank PO and therefore the selection process and the exam pattern for the bank MT & bank PO are almost the same.
As per the PNB Recruitment Notification, selection process for management trainees are in following four stages:
(i) Preliminary examination (written);
(ii) Main examination (written);
(iii) Group discussion / Personality Test;
(iv) Interview.
Let us go into detail of each of these four stages.
PNB Preliminary Examination pattern for MT:
The Preliminary Examination for PNB MT is of qualifying nature to screen candidates for the Mains exam and hence marks you score in Prelims would not be carried forward for the final merit list.
The Preliminary Examination is a one-n-half hour Objective Test with mark distribution as follows:
i) Test of Reasoning: 50 questions, 50 marks.
ii) Test of Quantitative Aptitude: 50 questions, 50 marks.
iii) Test of English: 50 questions, 50 marks.
You thus have a total of 150 questions with 150 marks to be answered in 90 minutes: just over 30 seconds for each question.
PNB Main Examination pattern for MT:
PNB Recruitment Notification has not said anything about the mark distribution/question pattern of the main written examination other than that it would consist of following seven test areas:
i) General Awareness.
ii) Computer Skills.
iii) Quantitative Aptitude.
iv)Test of Reasoning.
v) Test of English.
vi) Test of Marketing.
vii) Descriptive Test in English Composition.
RBI exam pattern:
The 3-phase selection process for the “Group-B” RBI job consists of following phases:
Phase-I: Preliminary Test: Written Exam (Objective type)
Phase-II: Final Test Written Exam (Descriptive type)
Phase-III: Interview.
RBI Phase-I Exam Pattern:
The Phase-I test of RBI consists of Objective type questions from following four sections:
i) General Awareness.
ii) English Language.
iii) Quantitative Aptitude.
iv) Reasoning.
The exam is of 3 hours duration for total 200 marks.
RBI Phase-II Exam Pattern:
For those selected in the RBI Phase-I Exam, they would have to appear for Phase-II Exam, which consists of descriptive questions from following three papers:
Paper I – English.
Paper II – Economic and Social Issues.
Paper III – Finance and Management.
As was told in the beginning of this blog post, bank exam patterns are almost the same for all the banks. So just prepare yourself thoroughly for the exam areas (i.e. the common papers of Test of Reasoning, Quantitative Aptitude, English Language & General Awareness as also paper on your area of specialization such as IT, Agriculture etc.) and with that preparation based on exam areas, I am sure that you would be able to crack most of the bank exams, if not all!
Best wishes!
State Bank of India (SBI) has issued notification for 500 positions of Management Executives, details of which can be found from my previous blog post titled: 
With the knowledge on the exam pattern of SBI Management Executives exam as above, you would find that the test sections are very similar to the Bank PO exams and hence you can use the study materials (i.e. sample papers and books) for the Bank PO exams as the study material for SBI ME exam. You must naturally be searching for some of those free online sample papers. Here are the model/sample papers I could find on the net from various sources:
BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) has issued recruitment notification for a total of 210 DGMs just today.
