My Strategy to ace IBPS PO & NIACL AO- Sumit Sharma

IBPS PO Success Story – Sumit Sharma

I am Sumit Sharma and I am from Delhi. I have cleared the IBPS PO 2016 Exam and in this article I will be sharing the strategies and study material that I used to crack the exam.

 

Here’s a bit about myself:

I have completed my graduation in 2016 only. I got 3 placements in my college but I wanted a job that was dynamic in nature and which can take care of all my needs. Thus I tried my hand at banking by giving SBI 2016 without any prep and when I cleared its pre exam without any formal coaching. I understood that I can be a banker. Thus I started my preparation for IBPS PO 2016. And with sheer determination and hard work I cleared it too (now waiting for my interview results).I also cleared NIACL AO 2016 exam.

 

My Strategy to tame IBPS PO Exam (section wise)

I would like to say “Practice is the key to success.”  I mean that you need to be just good enough in each section to at least clear the sectional cutoff and should be very good in one or two sections to increase your over all marks. Bank exams require more strategy and planning. You’ve to see where your strength lies, and then bank upon them. 

 

General Awareness

Talking about general awareness I would like to tell you that I don’t like this subject at all. Still I somehow managed to study it. I give the credit of clearing this section to my dad as it is because of him I have a habit of reading newspaper daily. There is no single day in between that I’ve not read the newspaper. And it is not that I read it for the sake of reading, i just enjoy reading it. So, this increases my awareness and keeps me updated about what is going round the clock.
Also, for a quick revision i took the help from adda247 capsule that gets uploaded around 10 days before the examination.

Some people like to make notes, so that it can be helpful while revision, but this is a personal choice. I have never made any sort of notes for GA, or for any other section for that matter. I find it a waste of time and quite boring, I’d better spend that time on reading the same thing again.

 

Oliveboard’s GK Supplement is recommended.

 

And the most important thing:

Current Affair should be prepared for the last 100 days from the day of the exam. (personal experience)

Now, which newspaper to choose? In my opinion, one should choose either The Hindu or The Indian Express, if not both. If you have that much time that you can afford to spend it on two newspapers then, I’d suggest to read both.
One should be your primary newspaper, that you’d read every day, without a miss. The other can be read if you have some spare time.

 

Banking Awareness

I took help from my senior who had cleared IBPS PO 2015 and SBI PO 2016. He guided me to study from his notes and also Banking Awareness questions from Oliveboard Mock Tests. In addition to these, another good source is the Mrunal Videos on Banking which are available on YouTube. This will be more than enough. If you want to revise, you can go through any of the capsules on Banking Awareness from the website of your preference.

 

English Language

I studied in a private school, so speaking and writing English wasn’t a problem, but finding errors and problem solving technique was required in it. For passage and vocabulary, you must study newspaper daily which will make you habitual of reading long passages.Also you can prefer a good book like Verbal Ability and RC by Meenakshi Upadhyay. In this book  you will get exposure to various kind of questions like para jumbles , RC , missing sentences in paragraph etc.

And keep attempting mock tests.

 

Logical Reasoning

This is the most dynamic section in nature. It becomes challenging also in way that it doesn’t have any “set syllabus”. We’ve seen a lot of change in banking exams, especially in Reasoning section. So, it is important to keep an open mind, and one needs to be ready to face anything.

There are more questions to confuse students. Also, in the preliminary exam you’ll get to see that almost half of your time has been wasted on this section. So, you need a lot of practice in advance to save your time during the exam. For this also I took the help of Kiran publications book and practiced all the questions of the chapters i was weak at. You can solve this section with a good accuracy just with a little effort in the beginning.

For puzzles there are different levels. You have to practise each level to be a master in puzzles. The first level includes puzzles containing single variable e.g single row arrangement. Second level includes the one with two variables like arrangement along with their favourite ice cream colour. Third level includes puzzles having 3 variables.

My personal tip is, attempt puzzles and arrangements only if you’re confident of solving them.

The more the no. of mocks you will give the better you will become in this section

Personally I like puzzles but upto second level. I never attempted any puzzles of third level. But if I found any puzzle time consuming I attempted it at the last if time permitted.

 

Quantitative Aptitude/Data Interpretation

This section is  my strongest one. So my goal was to maximize the score here somehow. Since I’m strong  in this from school time , I try to target every part here with maximum efficiency like DI part (SBI has only DI, except a few questions) and miscellaneous.

The thing with questions of the chapter of QA like Time and Distance, CI-SI, Time and Work is, they require a lot of practice. You have to complete all questions from a good book and if you’re someone with good concept of mathematics and time in hand, you should take up this book – Quantative Aptitude for CAT by Arun Sharma. This is a great book, and everyone who is preparing for CAT, Bank or SSC for that matter, must have it. Try solving and understanding the questions and concepts in this book and it’d do wonders for you- trust me when I say this. Topics like Series, Data Sufficiency can and should be prepared from online sources and from DI for CAT by Arun Sharma. Also as I said practise is the key to success, keep on giving mocks and recognizing your mistakes to avoid them in future.

Review of IBPS PO 2016

This year’s exam was on a different level altogether when compared to last year or to any year for that matter. It was test of knowledge as well as a test of one’s presence of mind and performance under pressure.

Starting from Reasoning, it was tough. Reasoning has always been on tougher side, but this time it was also tricky and few new types of questions were asked. This time in syllogism part conclusions were given and respective statements were asked. Also, there was a question, I remember, which was based on some rules and we needed to find out some values based on the preceding and succeeding letters and number. This too was never asked in Bank exams. Overall, Reasoning was tough nut to crack, and presence of mind was required to solve many questions.

GA, I felt, was easy. GA is never something to worry about, as only straight forward questions are asked. If someone follows the sources that are mentioned above. 70% marks can be easily obtained. Most of the questions were from Oliveboard mocks and GK Supplement.

Quants, was comparatively easy. It was kind of a shock as all were expecting a tough set.

English too, just like reasoning, was out of the world. There were questions on vocabulary, some questions on conjunction of two or more sentences, missing sentence in a paragraph. These were some types of questions that were absent last year of in other exams.

 

Tips for future aspirants

• For future aspirants, I would like to give a few suggestions:
• No matter what may come your way, you should never be afraid to face any challenge. Life is full of challenges and running away from them is not a solution.
• Thoroughly revise all the subjects.
• Give your best in whatever you start
• Regularly take the mock tests
• While attempting the exam concentrate more on your strong topics
• And just have faith in yourself. Remember that there is nothing that cannot be done

All the best guys.!