15% Hike in Banking Salaries and Holiday on Saturday

In what comes as good news for all Banking aspirants, a 15% increase in salary has been announced. The settlement was reached between the Indian Banks' Association & the unions. The negotiations have been on since 2012 and the new salary structure will take effect retrospectively from November 2012. Click here to prepare for IBPS PO | SBI PO

IBPS PO Score & Cut-Offs

The IBPS has come out with the scores of the qualified candidates and their scorecards. The written exam was conducted from October 11th to November 2nd 2014. Overall, 48,800 students cleared the written exam. You can visit the official IBPS website and view your scorecard.  

The overall cut-off for General category was 82. The top score on the written exam is expected to be around the 130 mark. 

The final result including the interview (which were conducted between Jan 19th -30th 2015) score will be announced on April 1st 2015. The weightage for the written exam in the final score is 80% and for the interview score will be 20%.

The overall and sectional cut-offs for the exam are as shown below:- 

Section	General	OBC	SC	ST
Quantitative Aptitude	7	4	4	4
Reasoning	10	6	6	6
English Language	8	6	6	6
Computer Knowledge	11	9	9	9
General Awareness	10	7	7	7
Total	82	80	70	56

SBI Associate PO 2014: First Day Analysis

The SBI Associate PO began on November 9th across the country and there were no surprises - if at all any, students were pleasantly surprised that the paper was simpler than the IBPS PO & SBI PO earlier this year.

The detailed analysis of the paper is shared below. For 10 mock tests of SBI Associate PO in the new pattern, click here.

Section	Number of Questions	Question Types	Difficulty Level	Good Attempts
Data Interpretation	50	35 Questions on DI + 5 on Data Sufficiency + 5 on Probability + 5 on Number Series	Moderate	26-30
Reasoning	50	10 Q on Seating Arrangment, 5 Q on Input-Output, 5 Q on Syllogism, 5 Q on Inequalities, 5 Q on Data Sufficiency, Blood Relations, Coding Decoding & Direction Sense	Easy-Moderate	35-38
General Awareness	50	Most questions were on Banking Awareness with 10-12 Questions each on Computer Knowledge & Marketing.	Easy-Moderate	28-30
English	50	2x10 Q on Passages, 10 Q on Cloze Test, 5 Q on Parajumbles, 5 Q on Correct Usage, 5 Q on Fill in the blanks	Moderate	32-34

The DI portion was a little calculation intensive but the section overall was much simple than the other PO exams held this year. Reasoning was fairly simple. Many people found one of the RCs a little tricky in the English/Language section. Overall around 120+ attempts should be a good number.

Some of the Questions (from both slots) of the Descriptive Section are as follows:-

Essay:-

• What are the lessons learnt from the various sporting leagues coming up in India such as the Indian Football & Kabaddi Leagues
• Who benefits the most from FDI in Retail - Farmer, Consumer or Investor
• Role of Banking Sector in CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)

Paragraph Writing

• Turning Point in your Life
• Disadvantages of a Nuclear Family
• Importance of setting personal goals in life
• All that glitters is not gold

Letter Writing

• Write a letter to your Bank Manager requesting him to unblock your Debit card which was blocked due to entry of the wrong PIN multiple times. 
• Write a letter to your parents asking them to send Rs. 15,000 for an educational tour conducted by your college.
• Write a letter to the Consumer Forum complaining about the lack of good facilities at your coaching center despite the center charging hefty fees. 

Precis Writing- one of them was on Code of Conduct in Business.

For 10 mock tests of SBI Associate PO in the new pattern, click here.

IBPS PO CWE Exam - Last Minute Tips

Many of these tips may appear basic but are vital as the IBPS PO is a speed based exam and small optimizations at your end can help you score at least a few extra marks. 

Group Discussion Tips

What is Group Discussion?

Group Discussion is a modern, yet common method of candidate elimination conducted in Banking Exam selection. It is typically conducted as a second round of elimination for candidates who cleared the written tests. Over here, a small group (typically 6-10 members) is created and a topic is given for discussion. The candidates in the group are then asked to discuss the topic and share their opinions. Read more below or Click here to prepare for IBPS PO and other Bank exams.

IBPS PO 2013 Exam Pattern & Questions

With exactly a month to go for the IBPS PO 4 exam, lets re-look at the 2013 exam which saw a change in pattern and was the first time the exam was conducted online. Back then in Oct 2013, many students were surprised with the considerable shift in the difficulty level of the exam. The exam also did NOT have a few traditional topics such as Visual Reasoning and Simplification. Let's look at the breakup of one of the slots - since it was an online exam conducted over multiple slots, there were minor variations is the number of questions of a topic. More details on the exam below. (To take a FREE Mock Test in the new IBPS Pattern, click here. )

Descriptive Section for SBI PO: The Art of Précis Writing

With the SBI PO exams just round the corner, we are starting a series of blog posts on essays, letters, précis-writing and other elements of the descriptive paper for the exam. We feel that précis writing is important, not only for the descriptive section of the SBI PO exams, but also for our day to day communication. So here is a short guide on Précis Writing.