SBI PO 2014 Exam Pattern, Papers & Books - the Prep Materials!

This exhaustive article provides you all the Prep materials for SBI PO Exam - the Previous Years Exam Papers & Prep Books along with exam pattern analysis.

Written Exam (both online and offline) for selection of Probationary Officers (PO) in State Bank of India (SBI) is scheduled to be held in June, 2014. Are you one of those appearing in this recruitment test? Than this blog post would help you crack the exam easily as it provides you the Prep materials for SBI PO Exam 2014. It thus so by first discussing about the pattern/format of SBI PO 2014 Exam, followed by pointing you to the sources of Sample/Previous years exam papers and name of the guide/prep books.

In a previous article of mine: SBI PO 2014 Exam Date Notification and Online Application I had provided the introduction for this exam and told how to apply for the same.If you have so far not applied for these PO vacancies, you can visit that post, which also enables you to download the notification.

Let us start focusing on the subject matter of this article by knowing what is the Exam Pattern/Format of  SBI PO 2014.

Selection process for Probationary Officers in State Bank of India:

SBI PO Selection process consists of two phases:

Phase-1: Written test (Objective & Descriptive): 250 marks.

Phase-2: Group Discussion & Interview: 50 marks.

Although it has not been given in the notification, SBI usually calls three times the number of vacancies for Phase-2, which in the current case should be around 5500 (i.e. 1837 vacancy x 3 times).

In preparation of the final merit list, weightage of the written test is 75% while rest 25% is for the GD+Interview. You can see the following flow-diagram to have a good idea about the PO selection process.

SBI PO exam pattern/format:

SBI written exam consist of 250 marks: 200 marks (2-hour duration) objective test and 50 marks (1-hour duration) descriptive test. Both the test are held on the same day - but your descriptive test paper would be evaluated only if you qualify in each of four test section of Objective Test as well as obtain the SBI PO exam Cut-off Mark in aggregate.

Papers in the Objective test is as follows:

English Language (Grammar, Vocabulary, Comprehension etc.)

General Awareness, Marketing & Computers

Data Analysis & Interpretation

Reasoning (High Level)

The descriptive test consists of following paper:

English Language (Comprehension, short précis, letter writing & essay).

Following table gives you a more clear picture about the papers in SBI PO exam as well as mark-distribution among them:

SBI has not specified any syllabus for the above exams.

SBI PO exam Cut-off Marks:

No cut-off has been declared by SBI for either of Phase-1 or Phase-2. The cut-off mark would be decided based on the relative performance of all the candidates category-wise.

SBI PO exam sample papers/previous years papers:

It is a good idea initially to make your preparation based on the Bank PO sample papers available in the internet, just to find the standard of questions. But later on, for an in-depth preparation, you have to take help of the Prep Books. I searched on net and uploaded following Bank PO sample papers, which you can use for SBI PO written exam.

Download PDF question papers of SBI PO exam:
You can click here to download following sample papers/previous years exam papers SBI PO exam:

SBI PO Exam 2010 Whole Paper
SBI Bank PO MockTest
SBI Associate Bank Exam 2011 English Language
SBI Associate Bank Exam 2011 Data Analysis

Sample paper for SBI PO Test of Reasoning:

You can also check this previous blog post of mine titled: Test of Reasoning: Sample Question papers & Books, which not only tells you about the four types of Test of reasoning (Numerical Reasoning, Verbal Reasoning, Abstract Reasoning & Diagrammatic Reasoning), but also gives you sample papers and books for the test of reasoning.

Books for the SBI PO exam:

Although above sample papers gives you an exposure to what questions you may expect in the SBI PO exam, your actual preparation should be based on books as the contents are more reliable. Following books can be used for your preparation. I have classified them into previous years papers, guide book, practice book and test-section specific books. You should buy test-section specific books according to the area where you are weak at and therefore you want to improve.

These books are available in most of the bookstores, but you can also order them online by clicking the links below, from Flipkart.com which offers huge discounts up to 30%, apart from free shipping/postage if the order exceeds Rs. 500/=. You can choose to pay through Credit Card/Debit Card/Internet Banking. You can also choose to pay through “Cash-on-Delivery” i.e. you pay in cash only when the same is delivered at your doorstep:

Book for Bank PO Previous years solved papers:

SBI PO Previous Years' Papers Solved By R. Gupta

List Price: Rs.210; Offer Price: Rs.147; Discount:Rs. 63 (30%)

Bank PO Exam Guide book:

SBI & Associate Banks PO Exam Guide by R. Gupta Publisher: RPH

List Price: Rs. 395/=; Offer Price Rs. 345/=; Discount: Rs. 50 (12%)
SBI & Associate Banks PO Exam Guide (Hindi) by R. Gupta Publisher: RPH

List Price: Rs. 405/=; Offer Price Rs. 385; Discount: Rs. 20 (5%)

Bank PO Exam Practice book:

SBI And Associates PO Exam Practice Work Book By Kiran Prakashan

Offer Price: Rs.375/=; Offer Price Rs. 281; Discount: Rs. 94 (25%)

Prep Books for specific test-sections of Bank PO exams:

A Modern Approach To Logical Reasoning by R. S. Aggarwal Publisher: S. Chand

Price: Rs. 175/=; Offer Price: Rs. 166/=;Discount: Rs. 9/= (5%)
Objective English For Competitive Examinations By Hari Prasad

List Price: Rs.435/=; Offer Price: Rs.329/=; Discount: Rs. 106 (24%)
The Accredited Guide to Data Interpretation and Data Sufficiency by Ananta Ashisha Publisher: Arihant

List Price: Rs.225/=; Offer Price: Rs.213/=; Discount: Rs. 12/= (5%)
MCQs in Computer Science by Timothy J Williams Publisher: TMH
List Price: Rs.455/=; Offer Price: Rs.359/=; Discount: Rs.96/= 21%)
Lucent's General Knowledge Publisher: Lucent

Price: Rs.180/=; Offer Price: Rs.119/=; Discount: Rs. 69/= (33%)

SBI Interview questions:

This blog has exhaustive resource on job Interview questions and you can find it here. Also in SBI Interview, apart from other areas, questions about SBI as an organisation are bound to be asked. So go through the about us page of the website.

Hope with above Sample papers & books for the SBI exam, you would be able to appear in the exam confidently. I would look out for more SBI prep-materials on the net and would post the same as I find them. So visit me again. Best wishes!

---