IBPS SO 2017 (IT & Marketing Officer) – Exam Tips by Toppers

IBPS SO 2017 Exam notification has been released recently and this year, IBPS has announced 1315 vacancies for the posts of specialist officers. The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) conducts the IBPS SO exam to recruit specialist officers in various disciplines like Marketing, IT, HR, Law, Rajbhasha Adhikari etc. to ensure seamless work on the respective areas. The preliminary examination is scheduled on 30^th & 31^st December 2017. You might have already started preparing for the exam. In today’s post, we bring to you expert tips by toppers for IBPS SO – IT & Marketing. They have successfully cleared the IBPS exams and share their success mantra with you.

Section-wise Exam Tips by Toppers for IBPS SO (IT & Marketing Officer) 

1. Quantitative Aptitude:

Get a strong hold over topics like Averages, Percentage, Ratio & Proportion and Simplification thoroughly first and focus more on Data Interpretation and Analysis. Practice questions that you find difficult repeatedly to get an edge and increase your speed.

Aditya Singh (Cleared IBPS SO IT Officer)

 “I kept on practicing questions from the book by R.S. Agarwal (completed it thrice). I did not want to lose marks in this section, so I repeatedly practiced all the questions by myself and solved all the practice questions available at the end of the chapter.”

Pankaj Saini (IBPS SO Marketing Officer)

“I had a fear of quantitative aptitude, so I kept on practicing some selected topics and kept on increasing the difficulty level. I did Averages, Percentage, Ratio & Proportion and Simplification thoroughly first and focused more on Data Interpretation and Analysis. I started with RS Aggarwal and went on to do the most difficult sets of Oliveboard and Quantitative Aptitude and Data Interpretation by Arun Sharma (TMH).”

2. Reasoning

Practice is the key in reasoning. Work out at least 1 puzzle every day to keep your logical mind at work and active. Concentrate on topics like Syllogism, Coding-Decoding, Blood Relations, Input Output, Puzzles etc.

Aditya Singh (Cleared IBPS SO IT Officer)

“Reasoning became stronger and better with practice, but puzzle was the catch every time. One thing I observed is if you solve all the puzzles on a given exam day, you could easily sail through any exam. So, in reasoning, practice is the key. The more you practice, the more you gain confidence.”

3. General Awareness

Read ‘The Hindu’ regularly. Maintain notes of all recent news and keep revising. Read on major amendments, appointments, awards, honors, books etc. nationally and internationally. Give a special attention to the banking section in terms of news and events.

Pankaj Saini (IBPS SO Marketing Officer)

“I never relied on any external source other than newspaper. I maintained a register in which I wrote news from Newspaper every day. On Sundays, I used to write news section-wise in a separate register in which the news of whole week was segregated into various sections like Appointments, Awards and Honours, Books, etc. It proved to be a very successful exercise for me.”

4. English Language

Read newspaper or magazine and try writing a gist of editorials or the story every day. This will improve your command over vocabulary and grammar. Practice more tests from Reading Comprehension, Cloze Test, Double blanks and Error Spotting.

Aditya Singh (Cleared IBPS SO IT Officer)

“Those who are worried about how to prepare English, I have only one suggestion- read ‘The Hindu’ newspaper. Unlike other newspapers, in “The Hindu”, the context and writing style is strictly as per the exam trend and even acts as a GA/GK booster.”

Pankaj Saini (IBPS SO Marketing Officer)

“I always kept on reading newspaper (which ever available). I used to write the Gist of editorials everyday which helped in Comprehension and improved my Grammar.”

5. Professional Knowledge – IT

Operating System, DBMS (Database Management System) and Networking are the most important topics and DBMS covers the maximum number of questions. Therefore, practice as many tests possible from DBMS and from multiple sources. Refer to Fundamentals of Database Systems by Elmasri & Nawathe, Operating System Concepts by Avi Silberschatz, Peter Baer Galvin and Greg Gagne and Data communications and networking by Behrouz A Forouzan.

Aditya Singh (Cleared IBPS SO IT Officer)

“In professional knowledge, the three most important topics are: Operating System, DBMS (Database Management System) and Networking. DBMS is the most important one. 60-70% of the total number of questions were asked from this single topic in the exam. I would suggest practicing as many questions from Professional Knowledge section as possible from all possible sources.”

6. Professional Knowledge – Marketing

Refer to Philip Kotler’s Marketing Management Book (any edition) and Kotler’s MCQ’s. Get a strong understanding of Branding, Buyer Behavior, Distribution Channels, Marketing Planning, 4 Ps of Marketing, 7 Cs of Marketing, Services Marketing, Marketing Research, Pricing, Promotion, Segmentation, Types of Market, Product Life Cycle etc.

Over-all Strategy by Deepanjan Das (Cleared IBPS SO Marketing Officer)

In his own words,

“Be selective in choosing your favorite topics and practice regularly to master your skills. In my opinion, being a master of all topics is not needed in banking exams, as in the end only speed and accuracy matter.

There are a few topics in each section which are of extreme importance. It is advisable to pay more attention to the following topics if you want to score more:

• Quant: Data Interpretation, Simplification, Number Series
• Reasoning: Syllogism, Coding-Decoding, Blood Relations, Input Output, puzzles
• English Language: Reading Comprehension, Cloze Test, Double blanks, Error Spotting.”

Read more success stories.

Now, ace your exam preparation with Oliveboard’s Mocks. You can analyze your performance after every mock attempt. This will help you identify your strong and weak areas so that you can concentrate more on the weaker topics and master them.

All the best!