SBI PO Prelims. The first battle in the war that you have embarked upon. In Part 1 I talked about the basic do’s and don’ts and in Part 2 I’ve outlined the overall strategy for the exam. The big picture is clear to you. Now, it’s time to zoom in and sift through the nitty-gritty of the Prelims phase. You will get to know what I did on my exam day, see my scores and gain some special insights on how to best tackle this phase. By now, you’ve already figured out that Prelims is a Sprint. Think of it as a 100 metres race. A race, that grants you 60 Minutes on the clock to work your way through 100 Questions. There is no time to whittle away thinking about the course of action. No time to turn around and look at your compatriot. Your brain must be acclimatized for unrelenting action. What does that mean? Simple. By the time you sit on that seat and the exam starts, you must know exactly how you will proceed. You must be equipped with the tools to respond when a plan you chalked isn’t feasible. And, you must remember that no matter how well prepared you are, there will be things you hadn’t anticipated. You must manoeuvre around those surprises and let nothing stand in your way in those 60 minutes. Now, lest I be tempted to begin a Kabir Khan-esque monologue and drop a cheezy “Saat minute hai tumhaare paas” quip, let’s dive right in.

The one change SBI made this year that no one is talking about

I’ve often seen people take the Prelims lightly. It’s only qualifying in nature after all. The difficulty level doesn’t even compare to the Mains exam. True. What’s also true is that it’s the Prelims phase where most of the candidates are filtered out. There has been a lot of chatter about the new changes to the Prelims pattern- the sectional timings, the shift away from sectional cut-offs, the large bond etc. But they all missed a crucial line in the notification. That line explicitly states that SBI is going to eliminate even more people in the Prelims paper this year. Till 2017 the notification stated that the number of candidates selected for Mains would be 20 times of the total vacancies. Based upon the vacancies for the past few years, this equated to somewhere in the range of 40,000 to 45,000 aspirants. This year they have changed this to mention that candidates called for Mains will number only 10 times of the vacancies.

This makes the playing field even more competitive. Only about 20,000 candidates will get through to Mains this year. And since the number of aspirants this year is expected to be in the ballpark of 20 Lakh, the Prelims phase will effectively eliminate about 99% of all aspirants. You might feel a sense of doom and gloom here. Don’t. Look on the bright side: If you clear it, you can declare yourself to be among the top 1% of the examinees. All it takes for you to beat 99% of the herd is the proper utilization of only 60 minutes. Are you ready to join the One Percenters?

Yes, you will join the One Percent Club. I will show you how.

Playing 20-20-20

The second fundamental change that has been brought in this year is the introduction of sectional timings for each of the 3 sections. There is an anomaly here. Accounting for the marks distribution, they should have made the English sectional timing to be 18 minutes and Reasoning & Quants should have been allocated 21 minutes each. Interestingly however, they did not choose to do this and instead equally divided the time between sections.

No time to whittle away in thinking. Your brain must be acclimatized for unrelenting action.

Because of this uniform 20 minute break up across the board, you have 2 additional minutes in English and 1 less for each of Quant & Reasoning. Strategizing which sections to allocate how much time & tweaking it till perfection used to be a very important feature of Prelims but now you can throw those strats into the garbage pile. Old veterans will have a tough time unlearning these strats but new aspirants will get a leg up. To adequately prepare for this, you need to break up your practice sessions into 20 minute sprees. Aim to finally get to a point where you can solve 40 questions in those 20 minutes. Sometimes it won’t be possible, and that is perfectly all right. Remember, the idea is to push yourself & stretch your limits. As you do this, your speed will increase and you will reduce the proclivity to waste even a second in the final exam.

No Sectional cut-off, only aggregate scores to be considered

The third and final change gives a major relief, especially to those who are weak in 1 section and strong in 2 others: No individual cut-offs for each of the 3 subjects. They will only consider your total score to rank you in the final merit list. Now, more than ever before, you need to play to your strengths. Figure out 2 subjects & target to get insanely good at them. I’m not recommending to neglect any section but to get extremely good in two of them so that you can afford to miss a few questions in your weaker section. There is still negative marking though, so you cannot indiscriminately attempt questions. Prelims contain 1 markers only so each wrong step will deal a -0.25 blow to your final score. The exam is still primarily about accuracy. Speed is secondary; Unless you have an above 85% accuracy it becomes very tough for you to crack the exam. Always watch that in practice & in mocks. How many are you getting correct? Develop systems to follow to cut down on minor errors. Aim first to be accurate, even if it comes at the cost of time. Do the numbers: Attempting 80 with 80% accuracy is actually worse than doing just 60 with a 100% accuracy. Increasing your speed should begin only after you have your accuracy down pat.

All bets are off when it comes to Sectional Ordering

All it takes for you to beat 99% of the herd is the proper utilization of only 60 minutes.

This is important to note and should be integrated into how you take practice mocks. There is no guarantee that the sections will be presented to you in the order in which they have been stated in the Notification. Also, SBI PO does not allow any sectional switching. That means you are stuck with whatever section is presented to you and you must do your best in that before the 20 minutes are up and the next section begins. So, if you have been too accustomed to starting with English in your mock tests, you might be in for a rude awakening. My advice would be to not restrict your sectional start. Gain the ability to tackle any section that is presented to you. If your mock test provider allows you to choose which section to begin with, then you should choose different sections to begin each of your mocks. If it doesn’t allow that, you can simulate this while solving offline mock tests- Randomize your sections and attempt them in different orders. As you continue to do this, you will develop mental agility and on Exam Day, you’ll be ready to attack whichever section they present to you and in whatever order they so desire.

The Section that will be the game changer this year

English. Some of you might be naturally strong in it while others dread it to no end. But consider the numbers: You have 40 seconds to solve each English question and only 34 seconds per question in the other two sections. This, on top of the fact that English questions usually do not take so much time to solve will play a crucial factor- People who are strong in English will be able to comfortably score a lot of marks. I’m not saying that you cannot use the Reasoning & Quant sections to get through but you have to work harder if you are relying on those sections to make the cut whereas people who rely upon English will let you soar ahead with minimal effort. So if you are weak in this section, consider putting in additional effort. Make a habit of reading an article each day and summarizing it in your own words. Go online and attempt some English questions to get familiar with frequently used figures of speech, idioms, phrases etc. I said it in Part 2 and I will reiterate: You cannot master English overnight. But you don’t need to develop Shakespearean English. You just to need to practice exam-focused questions. This will help you race ahead in Prelims and build up a solid foundation for Mains where it plays an even more important part. 

Asking the Right Questions

“How much should I attempt to be assured of qualifying?” Bad question. “What will be the cut-off this year?” An even worse one. I have heard that question too many times and the answer is simple. I don’t know! You need to realize the fact that there is no absolute answer to this question because it depends on multiple relative variables-Paper difficulty, novelty, number of candidates etc. You cannot go into the exam with a mindset of “minimum marks to attempt”. Instead, ask yourself this: “How do I make sure that I don’t mark an easy question incorrectly?”. Think about “How do I stop making inadvertent errors?”, “How can I ensure that I find all easy questions?”

Ask yourself this: “How do I make sure that I don’t mark an easy question incorrectly?”

I get a lot of questions but no one ever asks me these crucial questions. After every test break down your attempts and see which questions you knew but marked wrong. What happened in that moment? Can you devise a system so that you don’t make the same error again? I remember how doing this helped me make so many minor adjustments that paid off big time. Sometimes, under pressure I would get confused in Coded Inequality Reasoning questions. I figured out that if I used 30 seconds before I began to draw the codes for the corresponding inequality symbols on the paper my accuracy went above 90%. I was making a lot of mistakes in tougher DI. I found that hard DIs in Quant were doable if I proceeded methodically by making my own additional table. It took me 2 minutes to make the table but the pay off in the form of increased accuracy was priceless. No coaching centre or mentor or guide can tell you these things. Only you can discover these minor tweaks by asking yourself the correct questions. 

Tackle the Type before Meeting the Mock

Mock tests are invaluable. But you must not jump into a mock before developing ironclad concepts . Low mock scores will only demoralize you so its important to do the groundwork first. In order to be ready for a mock you need to have practised all the basic question types or at least get a feel for most of them. Lets find out what they are.

1. Quantitative Aptitude

• Simplification & Approximation – These questions are a test of your pure calculation ability.
• Number Series – Includes both the traditional missing number and the harder variant- Spot the incorrect number.
• Quadratic Equations – Make sure to learn both Factoring & Sridhar Acharya’s formula.
• Data Interpretation(DI) – Primarily consists of Bar Graphs, Pie Charts, Line Graphs or Word Problems. Usually DI accounts for 10 marks in Quant with 1 easy and 1 moderate/hard problem.
• Distance & Time – Problems relating to Boats & Streams, Trains, Cars. You will usually find at least 1 of these.
• SI & CI – Remember the age old formulas. Since you are interested in banking, develop an interest in Interests!
• Profit & Loss – Very simple and scoring. Carefully note whether the question asks the change “by” or change “to”.
• Time & Work – You can expect 1 from this as well, there are many types to cover so make sure you do each type.
• Averages – Search online to find out how you can calculate the answer even without using formulas.
• Age Questions – Usually just needs basic Algebra to solve. Sometimes you might need a bit of Ratios as well.
• Ratios + Mixtures & Alligations – A very important section, learn how to do these without using formulas.
• Probability + Permutation & Combination – This topic is all about practice. Find each type and master it.
• Partnerships – Usually a combination of Profit & Loss with Ratios. Very straightforward & scoring.
• Mensuration – Remember formulas for Areas, Perimeters & Volumes for the standard shapes.

2. Reasoning Ability

• Inequalities – Can be normal or coded inequalities and are usually very easy. You must not miss these.
• Blood Relations – Learn to make simple flowcharts to systematically complete these without errors.
• Directional Sense – Questions that make you trace the trajectory from point A to B in a myriad number of steps.
• Coding Decoding – Learn how to do these visually and you will never miss these points.
• Input Output – Prelims usually have the easy single shifting type. Double/triple shifting will come in Mains so you must prepare for that as well in due course.
• Puzzles – Circular Arrangements, Floor based, Blood Relation based & Multivariable matching types – These will usually take more time to solve so you must attempt them only after all easy questions are done.
• Syllogism – SBI is shifting away from these as you can use simple Venn diagrams to finish these off very fast. Still, you need to make sure you know how to do them.
• Analogies – Very few analogy questions are seen these days but you should know how to do them if they crop up.

3. English

• Reading Comprehension – Consist of many sub questions like: Find the Meaning, Synonym/Antonym and of course, interpretation of data from the paragraph, Title & Drawing conclusions.
• Cloze test – Brief passages with missing words in between that you must fill in. Identify the flow to solve them.
• Fill in the blanks – These include Single missing words or Double Fillers both of which are easily doable.
• Para Jumbles – Comprise the toughest parts of the English paper as they require proper logic & interpretation of the exact flow of passages. Should be attempted at the very end of the paper.
• Error Correction – The easiest part of the paper provided you have a command over parts of speech & tenses.

Note: If you feel you are running low on time, you can start doing mocks right off the bat. For the questions which you get wrong, refer back to the mock answers and Google the question type and practice it. I wrote down all the types so that you can treat this as a reference point and use Books, Apps or Google to find these types and practice them. You don’t need to finish big books. Just get a taste for these types and get comfortable solving them.

Which Mocks to buy & how to analyze them

I have already discussed in Part 2 about how to analyze your mock tests effectively & gain important insights into your weaknesses. If you need a refresher, Check out how to breakdown your SBI PO Mock Tests. Ok, now that’s out of the way, lets talk about which mocks are worth your money. There are many players in the market, so lets figure out how each one stacks up. Here are the top 6 mock test providers.

1. Oliveboard – The toughest mocks in the market. The challenge is not to get demoralized if you get low scores.

2. Gradeup – They offer a good mix of quality questions at a cheap price point. Their free content is truly amazing.

3. PracticeMock – Cheaper than Oliveboard but provides almost equally challenging questions. Worth a shot.

4. Testbook – The UI they use is first class but I found very less tough questions in their mocks.

5. Testzone – They have an excellent mock analysis system and are currently the cheapest option available to you.

6. Adda247 – They have a very active community but you might have to deal with slow server speed sometimes.

Properly analyze your mocks and you’ll find out what goes on in your head under exam conditions

I hope this helps you take an informed decision about who you should trust with your money. Personally, I went for Oliveboard and Gradeup for online mocks and followed the BSC Chronicle Magazine tests for offline ones. I complemented these with numerous mini mock tests that I took online from various sources. Most of my colleagues who made the cut also swear by Oliveboard while a few vouched for PracticeMock and Testzone. At the end of the day, you should not blindly listen to what I’m saying. You need to take a free mock from each of the above sources that I listed and then decide which one to purchase. Also, remember to keep a note of the timeline:

You have only about 1 month between Prelims & Mains so you must prepare keeping that in mind. You must not neglect Mains. There won’t be enough time later on. I have already told you in Part 2 to keep preparing Daily Current Affairs and I hope you are following that. You should also practice a few Mains papers in the run up to Prelims whilst also practising tough level questions. However, 1 month before Prelims you should stop doing any Mains mocks & focus purely on Prelims so that you can de-clutter your mind and streamline your focus. About 15 days before Prelims stop the daily Current Affairs as well to put yourself in the best position to ace Prelims with ease.

Scan-and-jump v/s Dive-Right-In

Section picking strategies are not required any longer but you still need to develop a strategy for how you work through each section. You want to make sure that you can capture all the easy marks as soon as possible. There are 2 primary ways you can tackle a section to do this – The first is to scan all the questions of the section and then do the ones which you identified as easy. The second is to go through the paper, looking at each question & identifying on the go whether its doable. If so, you just attempt that right away. Then you move to the next one. So, how do you find out which one works for you? This is where mocks come in. Try doing a few mocks with each of the strategies and soon you will find your groove. Personally I found the second strategy to be much more optimal for me as I would waste less time by reading-and-doing instead of reading-all-then-doing. Find yours & stick to it.  

Drill down your Weak Subjects to Find Weak Areas

Once you have a grasp of each concept you’ll start doing lots of mocks. After you’ve done a few, you will find that your scores in some subjects are consistently low. Now, you need to figure out which questions you are consistently missing. You can make a chart, write all the types of questions that I stated above and keep marking which question type you missed for each mock that you take. After a few days you can refer back to the total and you’ll figure out the areas in each subject where you are doing badly. This method also helps when you are unable to identify exactly which subject you are weak in. Its because you might only have weak areas, not weak subjects. Target those different weaknesses and master them. By the time Exam Day rolls in you will have a handle on your inherent strengths and weaknesses which will help you decide which questions to definitively attempt and which to leave.  

Don’t be buried in books on Exam Day

I cannot emphasize this enough: DO NOT carry your books/materials to the exam centre. Yes, that involves not checking your phone for study material as well. On the day of the exam you want to let your brain calm down. Even the night before the exam, you should just do something that relaxes you. Most of us, especially if you’re an engineer like me, love to cram on the night before the exam. It has actually served us pretty well till now. Believe me, this exam is a different beast altogether. It’s not just about how many things you know, its about how deeply you have studied and how ingrained are your concepts. There is no quick fix, no magic formula to get through. Focus your energy now. Pull all nighters now if you have to. The day before the exam, let your body and mind rest. If you have a good night’s sleep your brain will be at optimum capability. When you pore over study material just minutes before the exam, your brain becomes fatigued. Instead, why not flash a smile at your fellow stranger?  

Make friends, if only for a day

Don’t stop at a smile. Try to truly connect. When you get to the examination centre, don’t be a stranger. Talk. Have a conversation with your fellow candidate and it will calm the butterflies in both of your stomachs. Even if you are an introvert, I promise you it will help to relieve you from the exam jitters. Once you get out of your own bubble you will find that you’re not so special. There are so many people who are struggling just like you are. These are all human beings who don’t have a job right now thanks to the Indian Education System that breeds mediocrity & sameness. Chances are you will never meet these people ever again. I always made it a point to talk to people near me whenever I went for any exam. I remember during one of my early exams, I met a guy who had reached the age limit and was giving his last attempt. He gave me a great advice- Fill up as many forms as you can because there is no mock that can simulate giving live exams. He regretted that he had wasted a lot of chances but his advice was so beneficial to me over the months. I met a girl who was struggling with a lot of personal problems but was trying to achieve her dreams despite all the odds. It was so inspiring to talk to her. Most of these people I have never met again. But still, it was all worth it. Enjoy the company that only a fellow struggling soul can provide. Talk.

Getting into the Zone

About 30 minutes before the exam starts you should stop talking. By that time you would be sitting in front of your computer. Get comfortable. Get used to the surroundings- the light, the air, the smell, the overall ambience of where you are in. Let it all seep into you. Close your eyes, focus on taking deep breaths and just silently whisper into your brain “I can do this”. “I am here to WIN”. “Nothing can stop me from achieving my dreams”. These positive reinforcements should be all you focus on as the clock ticks down to the final 15 minutes and you are allowed to login. Develop this regimen- this discipline- to get into the Zone. Your focus and concentration should be at the maximum level as you click Begin and slay the exam. Win the moment. Win the day.

My Exam Day

It was 9th July, 2016. My exam centre was a bit far from my house on the outskirts of Kolkata and the reporting time was 8AM. So I began quite early and reached with an hour to spare. As usual, the place was full of aspirants, most of them buried deep in their notes. Only a few of them were “bookless” and wandering aimlessly like I was. I went up and chatted with a few. At a quarter to 8 we were allowed to enter the examination hall. We were led up to a large room with hundreds of computers and allotted our seats after the biometric verification, left thumb impression and call letter inspection. Each candidate had a designated seat and a change was not allowed. Exactly 15 minutes before the exam was supposed to start we were told to login. You are required to login and read through the instructions, choose your language & confirm that the setup you have been provided is working without a hitch. 15 very long and very tormenting minutes later a small window popped up with the message “You can now begin the exam”. I took a deep breath, told myself one last time “You can do it” and clicked on Begin.

That feeling of clicking “Begin” simply cannot be described, it can only be experienced

The Plan gets derailed

I had my strategy ready and began in a flurry. I was fully committed to finish off the easy questions in the first half hour. I started with the English section (Remember you no longer have the luxury to choose your starting section or the order of sections). My target was to finish everything in English except RC and Parajumbles within 10 minutes. I was able to do so within 7 to 8 minutes. Then I jumped into Quants and solved the miscellaneous questions ignoring the two DIs. Within 10-13 minutes I was done with easy questions and I moved to the Reasoning section to scope out the sitters and bag some easy points. I had 40 minutes left and was feeling very confident. This was when things took a bad turn. The Reasoning section was strewn with puzzles! As I skipped the questions I began to encounter puzzle after puzzle. I wasted a minute to sort through the questions itself because the non-puzzle questions were very intelligently placed in different locations.  I overshot my target of 10 minutes and spent almost 15 minutes here and did only about 10 questions of Directional Problems, Blood Relations & Inequalities. I was getting nervous and losing my cool as things weren’t going according to plan.

Thinking on my feet, Going off-track and finding my way back

My plan of targeting most questions in the Reasoning section went horribly awry. I quickly switched over to Quants and hunted for the easiest DI. I completed it and also did a couple of miscellaneous word problems within another 10 minutes. I had 15 minutes remaining and I don’t know what got into my head but I felt I might miss the Reasoning Cutoff so I went back to Reasoning. There was an easy Ranking Puzzle that I did which boosted my confidence. So I attacked another puzzle. 3 minutes gone. Failed. I tried another one. Failed again.

7 minutes were wasted to score just 3 marks and I was down to the final 8 minutes. RC was still there so I went to read that. It took me 2.5 minutes to read the whole thing but I don’t know what happened- maybe because I read too fast- I was totally blank and could not figure out the answer to any of the questions of RC! With great difficulty I did one. I could not believe it! English was my forte and I missed so many there! I was exasperated but steeled myself. There were still 4 minutes left on the clock. I moved to Quant again and attempted a tough DI. I made my own table for it and cracked it, followed by a number series problem. The final minute was ticking down as I noticed a very easy Cylinder volume ratio problem that I had completely overlooked. I solved it and as soon as I was able to mark the answer the clock ran out. Dammit! Heartbreaking. The final screen came up with the number of attempts but I was so flustered I just clicked exit without checking it. That was it. I cursed myself for letting my adrenaline shoot up and made a mental note to remain calm next time. I had done all I could do. The rest was up to fate.

Final Attempts: English 26, Quant 23, Reasoning 13

My SBI PO Prelims 2016 Marksheet

SBI PO Prelims 2016 results were supposed to be declared on 18th July, 2016. But SBI, staying true to their love of surprises, announced the result on the afternoon of 17th July. A friend broke the news and I dropped everything & scrambled to login to the website. After a brief struggle to login, it was a huge relief to read the bold red letters.

As I analyzed my scores I was very surprised to see that I had scored more marks than my attempts! What sorcery was this? I talked with a few of my peers and found that many had similar experiences. I later learnt that SBI normalizes scores based on many factors to compute the cut-offs. The higher your accuracy the greater the rounding up effect. I don’t know if they still follow the same policy but this indeed means that being accurate is extremely vital. The paper was tough for the majority of aspirants which reflected in the low cut-off (I guess Reasoning threw many off track that year). My accuracy was almost 100% for SBI PO Prelims and it was a vindication of my relentless belief: There are no prizes for correct attempts. The only prizes are for correct answers. Hard work is important but so is smart work. Remember, this is your shot to beat 99% of the herd of candidates. This year the D-Day falls on 15th July, 2018. You better buckle up and make sure that your name is on that list. Only YOU can ensure that.

Delays will cost you dearly – Use your “Dilemma Days” productively

I cannot emphasize this enough: Do not put your prep on hold as soon as Prelims is over. Yes, perhaps your exam was not as good as you’d expected it to be. Maybe the paper was tough. So you think you won’t make the cut. But what if you did get through? Could you forgive yourself for wasting precious days contemplating whether you made the cut? The intervening days between the Prelims exam and the date of results can be a really tough time. I refer to them as “Dilemma Days” because it seems like you’re in a limbo for those days- unsure of what to do next, how to proceed and constantly thinking about the results. But you cannot afford to let those days fly by. Restart the Mains mocks. Just do it. Whatever happens, hard work will never go to waste. Remember that, and plod on. Do not refresh the SBI website every hour as the deadline looms closer. When the result comes out you will know. Patience. Let others waste their time procrastinating. Use your Dilemma Days to move even further ahead of the pack.

Forget others, just do your own thing

100 metre races aren’t won by staring at your adversary. There is no need to figure out what your competitors are doing because they don’t matter. This year about 20 to 25 lakh people will sit for this exam. That might seem like a huge number, but remember this: Most of these people are casuals. They’re sitting for SBI PO because their parents told them to. They are just “trying” for SBI PO. You don’t try. You make it happen, You DO. They are not your competition. For Prelims, your biggest competition is YOU. Its a battle against your own mind which you must win. Sail through. Tougher battles await. Subscribe to Supriyo Panda’s Newsletter!