Best Tips for Bank Exam Preparation | Bank Exam tips

A career in Public Sector Bank is one of the most sought after professions in our country. It offers professional growth, status in the society, financial security, and last, but not least an opportunity to be a part of nation-building. This article relates to the basic tips for bank exam preparation. One can join the bank either in the clerical or directly in the officer cadre. 

The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, popularly, the IBPS conducts a nationwide exam to choose and appoint the most eligible candidates for the job. IBPS conducts exams separately for both SBI and other PSBs. The exam has three phases, the Prelims, the Mains, and the Personal Interview. 

However, for clerical cadre selection, there is no personal interview. The Prelims exams are designed to eliminate the masses and the Mains are the real selection test. Let us discuss how to prepare for these tests and the subsequent interview. There is no preparation for prelims, except for doing a few practice exams. Straight away start preparing for the mains. Both prelims and mains are of a similar category, but the degree of toughness will be on the higher side for the mains. 

Tips For Bank Exam Preparation

Sections for Banking Exams –

Subjects for Prelims are Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning, and English Language. For the mains, General Awareness is the additional paper. The General Awareness section covers a wider domain including Current affairs of national and international importance, banking concepts, economics, etc. 

Speed or Accuracy –

As in the case of any other competitive exams, accuracy, and speed matter. So, what should one chase? Speed or accuracy. Definitely the latter. There is no point in having speed at the expense of accuracy. Chase accuracy, speed will follow. And to have the accuracy, the mantra is simple. Practise, practice, and practice, for, ‘practice makes a man perfect’.

Syllabus Planning –

The first thing to do is to understand the syllabus well. Then to make a clear cut plan of action. Failing to plan is obviously planning to fail. Having outlined the syllabus earlier, let us discuss the topics separately and make a plan. 

• Quantitative Aptitude – We may call it QA. QA papers will have questions on numerical ability, commercial arithmetics, permutations and combinations, data analysis, data sufficiency number series, and data interpretations. The level of toughness will be a few notches up for the mains. The initial focus must be to make the concepts clear. Attempt questions from every possible source, you can lay your hands on. Have a good number sense, which will help you build calculation speed. Whenever you practice, make sure that you are fully attentive, and keep a tab on time. This exam is all about running against time. So whenever, you practice a question paper, do keep time. One does not have the liberty to take time lavishly. Check how many answers you got correct, where you have gone wrong.  After that, you take your own time to analyze and learn. 

• Reasoning – It is all about practicing. Try to understand the format of previous years questions. Explore as much as possible. Device your own methods or follow well-polished methods of others. 
• English Language – English Language test is an insurmountable task to too many. It requires a good reading habit of the newspaper. The Hindu is highly recommended, as it’s a well and truly national daily. 
• General Awareness – Anything important at the national and international level must be taken down and a good diary of events must be kept. Give a special emphasis on matters related to economics, banking, and finance. Though anything under the Sun can be asked, for bank exams, the so-called static GK, or facts related to history and geography are seldom asked. Those could be regulars for the SSC exam, but for bank exams, current topics dominate the question papers. 

When you are asked to read the newspaper, what is advised is not to just gloss over them, rather spend quality time in reading and developing the good habit of picking vital information and jotting it down. Considering the contemporaneous nature of exams, if you read the newspapers well, it may help you score well not just in the GA paper, but also do well in the logical part of the reasoning section and the English Language paper. Your comprehension abilities will slowly, but surely and steadily improve. Moreover, the interview will be a cakewalk for those who read the newspaper well. 

Whatever mentioned above is something easier said than done. It requires sheer determination and childlike enthusiasm to stand out in the crowd. What really separates the men from the boys will the willingness to remain awake, while others sleep. Hard work has never failed. And will never fail too. These are the best tips for bank exam preparation.

Good luck to all aspirants!!