Ankit Malik’s Strategy to Crack RBI Assistant, NIACL AO, IBPS PO & Clerk

RBI Success Story – Ankit Malik

Aspirant Ankit Malik has cleared the RBI Assistant, NIACL AO, IBPS PO and IBPS Clerk Exams successfully. Below is a comprehensive strategy to prepare and crack these exams shared by him:

 

Hello everyone,

Before I start, let me tell you a little about myself. I am Ankit Malik, belonging to a small village in Panipat, Haryana. I am an Engineering graduate, like most of you. I have done my Engineering from Panipat Institute of Engineering and Technology, in 2015.

I started preparing for Government Exams after completing my graduation. Initially I was very overconfident and did not prepare very religiously and hence failed in a lot of exams including the SBI PO Prelims 2015, SSC CGL 2015, IBPS Clerk 2015, LIC AAO 2016, SBI Clerk Mains 2016, DMRC 2016, AAI 2015-16, RRB NTPC.

At that time I was getting frustrated being jobless and it was almost one and a half year since I started preparing for Government Exams. But after facing failures in almost every exam I was appearing for, I did some introspection and realized that my attitude towards these exams and my strategy was not appropriate.

Level of banking exams was changing rapidly in the past year or so for SBI PO and I finally decided to enroll myself for mock tests. I found some online mock test websites including Oliveboard but I felt that oliveboard is costly (I was wrong obviously) and enrolled for some less costly mock test series.

So I cleared SBI PO Prelims, Mains, appeared for Interview, got 27 out of 50 in interview. And hence could not clear SBI PO. I was deeply disheartened as I was very close to my first government job but destiny had other plans for me. So when the score card came I realized that I was marginally above the cut off in mains. So I decided to improve my score in mains. For that I finally purchased Oliveboard’s mock test for IBPS PO. And after IBPS PO, I purchased Oliveboard’s mock test for NIACL AO, IBPS CLERK, RBI ASSISTANT, IPPB SCALE 1 OFFICER.

 

And finally I got selected in:

• Oriental Bank of Commerce as Probationary Officer.
• New India Assurance Limited as Administrative Officer.
• Reserve Bank of India as ASSISTANT.
• Punjab National Bank as Clerk.

 

My Overall Preparation Strategy

Before I start with strategy for different sections, I want you all to remember 4 things that are necessary to succeed in any competitive exam, and those are:

• Patience
• Planning
• Selectivity
• Practice

 

And only one thing can help you follow above points and that is Hard Work.

See, you all chose to appear for government exams so patience is must if you want to succeed in this area. Getting a job today requires a lot of hard work and getting a Government job requires double of that hard-work. So be patient and believe in yourself, believe that you can do it no matter what comes in exam, if others can do it, so can you.

Now banking exams requires a lot of planning like which section you are going to attempt first, which topics you are going to attempt first and so on. It’s necessary to plan to have an effective time management.

Now comes the Selection part. Banking exams don’t require you to have the ability to attempt every question, rather it requires you to have the ability to leave the selective questions. You should know which questions are worth attempting and which ones are not. This is very important, especially for Banking exams.

For practice part you all know what to do. Attempt as many mock tests as you can for any exams and analyse them as analysis is the most important part of attempting mock tests, without it, attempting mock test is useless. I will not suggest you to go for any particular mock test series as all are good but before selecting any website give at least one free mock test and see the post exam analysis it provides and whether the solutions provided are accurate and thorough or not. This is where Oliveboard triumphs. As the post exam analysis is best available in the market. It also analyses your time management and accuracy and helps you identify your weak areas so that you can focus on those areas. Its extremely important to know your weak areas.

 

Sectional Preparation Strategy

English Language

I always used to attempt English section first. Because in around 10-12 minutes it can fetch you 20-25 marks in preliminary exam. Being an English medium student, from the beginning I was very comfortable in this section. For English I studied Neetu Singh’s Plinth to paramount and S.P Bakshi. These books are very good for clearing your basic concepts of grammar.

I used to read an English newspaper daily which helped me in learning new words and was very useful as most of the times newspaper articles are given in the comprehension part. So it’s a must for everyone.

So in English I used to attempt Error Spotting, Fill in the Blanks, etc first. Then I used to attempt Cloze Test and Parajumbles. After that, I used to have a glance at the passage to have an idea about the topic and if it seemed very technical with lots of banking terms then I used to skip that part, if it seemed simple news based or story based only then I used to attempt it.

My advice to other aspirants is that first of all clear your basic concepts of grammar (my preference was plinth to paramount). After clearing your concepts, practice a lot. Attempt as many mocks as you can.

General Awareness

General awareness used to be one of my weak areas. I used to attempt it after the English section.

For this I used to read Daily GK updates, and note down important news only. This helped me a lot as it was easier to remember and revision was quicker and more effective. I used to read 3 months of news prior to any exam and I think it’s more than sufficient. I also used to read newspaper (Times of India). You can read any English newspaper it doesn’t really matters as long as you are reading it with full dedication. Reading newspaper helps in English section too so you can’t afford to skip reading newspaper.

For banking awareness part I read Arihant’s Banking awareness and made notes, which are more than sufficient. If you don’t want to read the book then go through the FAQ given on RBI website, it will clear all your concepts and most of the questions of banking awareness would be from the FAQ section of RBI.

For static part, I had made notes of countries-capital-currency, national park, wildlife sanctuaries, dams, airports, rivers etc. Always focus on countries in news as there are questions expected related to those countries.

Apart from these I used Oliveboard’s GK supplement. Whenever I encountered any new question in that GK supplement, I used to write it down separately for easy revision. I would not recommend you to read capsules as you can’t cram 60-70 pages in 8-10 days. But if in case there is a shortage of time then you can take help of these capsules.

 

Computer

Being an engineering graduate, this was very easy for me and I never gave much time for its preparation. I think computer capsule of any website would suffice.

 

Reasoning

This is the most scoring and most dynamic section. I used to attempt it second last. To clear my basics I used BSC publication’s analytical reasoning, BSC’s a magical book on puzzles (it’s not relevant in today’s exams as the level of puzzles is not upto the mark).

Apart from that I used to attempt mock tests a lot for reasoning part and analysed the unattended questions then attempted them again and again until they got solved. In exams I used to attempt all the questions in miscellaneous part like coding decoding, syllogism, blood relationship, direction test, inequalities, ranking , assumption, strong arguments, cause and effect, decision making etc.

After that I used to select the puzzles which I was sure of solving. If all the puzzles could be solved I used to solve all of them without thinking about time. But you need to be very sure that you can solve it otherwise it could really hamper your chances of selection.

For reasoning I would not suggest to read any book, unless your concepts are not clear. Otherwise just attempt as many mocks as you can. Practice is the key for this section (in fact for all the sections).

For puzzles, start with the basic ones and then increase your level and keep practicing.

 

Mathematics

This was my weakest area and hence I used to attempt it last. For this section also I would suggest to clear your basics first after that just take mock tests and no need to refer any book afterwards. I referred Arun Sharma for clearing my basics.

In exams, I would suggest everyone to be very selective in this section unless and until you are a SOORMA (not Soorma Bhopali but real SOORMA) of mathematics. Because if you chose the time consuming questions then it will be very difficult to even clear the sectional cut off.

In this section I always attempted series questions, quadratic, simplification, approximation etc. first. After that I used to solve one or two DI, the easiest ones. Then I would go to 5 miscellaneous part and do selected questions from average, ages, time and work, profit and loss and leave all other questions as these above mentioned topics take relatively less time.

 

So in the end, I would say that please keep yourself updated with latest pattern as the banking exams have evolved a lot in the past year so you have to keep evolving too. Also I would like to tell you to never doubt yourself, keep practicing a lot, stay focused, have patience, have a proper strategy for each exam, be positive and have faith in yourself and in God too. If I can do it, all of you can do it.

All the very best for all your exams.