Dear Aspirants,
The IBPS has released the official notification for IBPS PO 2017 Exam. The exam is going to be conducted on 7th, 8th, 14th & 15th of October 2017. The last date for application is 5th Sept 2017.
In the following article we are providing you a detailed preparation guide on IBPS PO Prelims Quantitative Aptitude section. The Quant section contains 35 questions for 35 marks.
Download the below article as a PDF to use it as a handy guide throughout your preparation.
What to study?
Following are topics you can expect in your IBPS PO Prelims Quantitative Aptitude section 2017:
You can expect up to 5 questions each from Simplification/Approximation, Number series, Data Interpretation (5 to 10 questions), Quadratic Equations and Data Sufficiency.
You can expect up to 3 questions each from the other miscellaneous topics, such as Percentage, Ratio and Proportion, Average, Mensuration, Simple interest compound interest, Problem on ages, Speed time and distance, Profit and Loss, Linear equations, Permutation and combination, Probability, Mixture and Alligation, Time and work, Boats and streams, Pipes and cisterns.
IBPS PO Prelims Quant exam analysis 2016
In the 2016 IBPS PO Prelims the Quant section was of easy to moderate level. The topics that appeared in previous year IBPS PO Prelims quantitative aptitude section were:
Data Interpretation – 10 (2 sets) questions
Quadratic Equations – 5 questions
Approximation – 5 questions
Number series – 5 questions
Miscellaneous (Simple and compound interest, speed and time, profit and loss, time, work, averages, ages, ratio, etc.) – 10 questions
IBPS PO Prelims Quantitative Aptitude Preparation Material
We suggest you keep your preparation material minimum. You will need the following study material for effective preparation of Quantitative Aptitude section of IBPS PO Prelims:
- Previous Year IBPS PO Prelims Quant Question Paper (organized chapter-wise)
Note on books: It’s been noticed that Quant preparation books containing practice sets and previous year question papers have a lot of errors in them. Therefore, you need to be very careful when it comes to selecting books for your IBPS PO Prelims Quant exam preparation. Make sure you pick the best and most recommended book from the market which has no errors.
Oliveboard provides video lectures, concept lessons, topic and sectional tests for effective preparation of IBPS PO Prelims Quant section. These preparation material are created by experts and top rankers after an in-depth research and analysis.
Try it out for yourself for free here: Quantitative Aptitude Preparation Material
IBPS PO Prelims Quantitative Aptitude Preparation Method
While it is important to learn all the concepts across all the topics of IBPS PO Prelims Quant and practice them, it is equally important to learn them in an order. Most quant topics are interdependent, meaning, you need to know concepts of one topic to understand or solve another.
For instance, most Quant topics require you to apply concepts of Interest, Percentage and Profit & Loss. Therefore, we suggest you start by learning, what are called the base of Arithmetic section: Percentage, Profit & Loss and Interest. Understand the concepts and practice them to master them.
Start by learning topics that form the base for other topics and then move on to higher-level difficult topics that require you to have a knowledge of these base topics.
Start with the basics
If you’re poor at math, we suggest you start by brushing up your basic math concepts using NCERT Math textbooks of 8th to 10th grade. However, you need to be selective in your learning and learn only those concepts that will most likely appear in the exam.
Calculation speed:
It goes without saying, that you need to have a good calculation speed to save time during your exams. Following are a few ways you can calculate faster and save precious energy & time:
- The Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication & Division are used in almost all the math problems. Learn and follow the one-liner approach for quicker addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
- Next learn tables up to 20 and square roots up to 30, cube roots up to 20
How to multiply 3-digit numbers in 10 seconds | How to multiply 2-digit numbers in 10 seconds | Toppers strategy on how to add numbers faster
A word on Shortcut Tricks:
There are plenty of shortcut tricks for every Quant topic. However, you need to be selective about which shortcuts you should learn. We suggest you learn shortcuts only after mastering the conventional way or traditional way of solving the Quant topics. Learning all the shortcuts available will only end up confusing you further. Therefore, learn those shortcuts which will help you arrive at the solution faster.
The key here is to master both the traditional way of solving and solving using shortcut techniques.
How to learn the shortcut techniques?
Your shortcuts need to be personalized. Every individual has a different way of solving questions and therefore can device their own shortcuts depending on their strengths and weaknesses. We suggest you try and come up with your own shortcut techniques. If and only if you can’t do this, refer to books that contain shortcut techniques.
Likewise, don’t waste your time trying to mug up all the formulas to all the questions. Learn only the most important formulas.
After learning each concept, practice sufficient number of questions from the practice sets to build those concepts. Every topic has a different kind of question. Therefore solving questions from practice sets exposes you to all possible kinds of questions from that topic which will help you master it. Repeat this for all the topics and finish all the chapters.
Practice tests include thousands of questions of varying difficulty levels to prepare you for any kind of question in the exam. The tests also provide in-depth analysis of your performance, including time taken per topic, accuracy, all-India standing, and much more.
Take free Quant Sectional Tests for IBPS PO Prelims. Click on the banner:
Previous Year Question Papers
Once you have practiced sufficiently, it’s time to bring out your previous year IBPS PO Prelims Quant question papers.
Why is it important to solve Previous Year Question Papers:
- IBPS tends to repeat questions from previous years in its question papers
- Solving previous year question papers gives you a brief idea of the difficulty levels of questions asked
- They will familiarize you with the question patterns
Revision
Revision is underestimated and not taken seriously. Revising the concepts you have learnt is extremely important to retain them and master the concepts. So make sure you:
- Revise the basics from the NCERT math textbooks
- Revise the practice sets
- Revise important high-level questions
Mock tests are constant, from the start to the end of your IBPS PO Prelims Quant preparation cycle.
- Take a mock test before you being your preparation to assess your level
- Take topic and sectional quant mock tests during your preparation (practice sets)
- Take complete sets of mock tests post your revision stage
Mock tests will help you measure your study progress and improvise on your weak areas. They provide instant feedback in the form of detailed analysis to help you determine your speed and accuracy and also your strong and weak areas.
Take free IBPS PO Prelims Quant Mock Tests:
General tips:
- Quadratic Equations: The Quadratic Equations is an easy topic. You need to know the how to find roots, how to find sum of roots, etc.
- Number series: Number series is a relatively difficult topic. We suggest you attempt these questions at last. The questions are pretty straight forward.
- Data Interpretation (Tabular, Bar graph, Pie chart, Line graph, Missing DI): The Data Interpretation sums are calculation based, therefore your calculations need to be super-fast. Know fractions, percentages, and how to read data.
- Approximation: Approximation is of moderate difficulty level.
- Arithmetic: You do not have to answer all the questions. Skip the questions if you think they will take time or if you can’t solve them.
- Maintain a practice workbook to pen down the mistakes you’re making while practicing. This way you won’t repeat your mistakes again. Also make note of formulas for different chapters. You can use this workbook during your revision.
- Practice questions in an exam like environment. This will familiarize you with the exam environment.
- Avoid use of calculators for calculations and minimize the number of rough sheets you use for calculation. Try and calculate mentally as much as possible to save time.
- Don’t get stuck on any particular question during the exam. If you’re finding it difficult to solve a particular question, we suggest you mark it for review and solve it later if time permits.
- If you’re good at the Reasoning and English sections, we suggest you attempts them before the Quant section in as less time as possible (with accuracy, mind you) and use the remaining time for Quant.
- Try and solve all the Quant problems in 25 minutes if you’re fast solver or maximum 30 minutes if you’re slow. Minimize the attempt time and maximize your accuracy. If you’re taking 25 minutes in total for Quant, 5 minutes is spent in reading or scanning the questions.
- Try answering all the questions. However, you don’t have to answer all the questions, so you can afford to skip 2 to 3 questions which are time-consuming if you’re running out of time.
- 18 to 20 questions is considered as a good attempt.
- It’s extremely important that you read the question and determine whether or not you can solve it. Answer the question only if you’re confident about it. There’s a negative marking of 0.25 marks for wrong answers.
We hope you found the above tips for IBPS PO Prelims Quantitative Aptitude section useful. We suggest you use these guidelines to formulate your own strategy, based on your strengths and weaknesses. Download this guide as a PDF to keep it handy during your preparation.
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