SBI PO

The SBI PO ( State Bank of India – Probationary Officers) examination is conducted by the State Bank of India to recruit candidates for the post of probationary officers in the various branches of SBI across India. The exam is conducted in three stages. First, a preliminary exam (Prelims) is conducted. Candidates securing marks above the cut-off in the prelims can appear for the main exam or the mains. Candidates short-listed in the mains are further called for Group Discussion/Interview.

The candidate must be an Indian national to be eligible for the SBI PO. In addition, a candidate must be a graduate in any stream from a recognised college/university. The following criteria are applicable for age limit.

• General category candidates must be between 21 and 30 years old.
• SC/ST/ExS/J&K migrants are allowed a relaxation of 5 years for age limit.
• For OBC candidates the upper age limit is 33.
• Depending on their category, candidates belonging to the Persons with Disability group are allowed a relaxation of 10 to 15 years.

Candidates belonging to the general category are allowed a maximum of 4 attempts. Candidates who belong to the Persons with Disability (PWD) group and also belong to the general category are allowed 7 attempts. Candidates belonging to the OBC category are allowed 7 attempts again. PwD candidates who also belong to the OBC group are allowed 7 attempts. For the PwD candidates among SC/ST, there are no restrictions in the number of attempts.

Both the prelims and the main exam are conducted in the online mode. The questions are objective type in nature. In the prelims, there are 30 questions from the English language, 35 from quantitative aptitude and 35 from reasoning ability making it a total of 100 questions. The duration of the preliminary exam is 60 minutes.

Coming to the main exam there are two sections viz objective and descriptive. The section on objective type questions is evaluated out of 155 marks while the descriptive section is evaluated out of 50 marks. The number of questions is distributed as follows:

• 60 questions from Reasoning & Computer Aptitude to be answered in 45 minutes.
• 60 questions from Data Analysis & Interpretation to be answered in 45 minutes.
• 40 questions from General Awareness about Economy/Banking to be answered in 40 minutes.
• 40 questions from the English language to be answered in 40 minutes.

This makes it a total of 200 questions in the objective part of the paper. The descriptive questions are from letter writing and essay writing. SBI provides pre-exam training free of cost for candidates belonging to the reserved categories. This training is a 6-day program in which the students are given training on some important topics and they are also provided important tips to clear the exam. This training is conducted in several centres across India.

Candidates must get their fundamentals in quantitative topics like the Number System, Ratio and Proportion, Average etc. The topics on reasoning ability on which the aspirants must be thorough include Directions and Distances, Inequalities, Ordering and Ranking and several others. Candidates should be thorough with English grammar, reading & comprehension.

For the main exam, the candidates must be thorough with topics on Data Analysis & Interpretation like Bar Graphs, Line Graphs, Pie Charts and their interpretation. General awareness includes current affairs, banking and so on. The group discussion/interview is very important and several aspects of the candidates’ personality like confidence, subject knowledge etc are assessed during the GD/Interview. It is better to prepare as early and as thoroughly as possible.