Success Story of Nilay Kumar – Cleared IBPS PO 2018

This is the Success story of Nilay Kumar, who cleared IBPS PO in his first attempt after declining his joining letter from two major tech companies.

The best way to build a successful strategy & prepare yourself is to ask who has used it effectively to get success in various competitive exams. Hence, we bring to you the detailed preparation strategy of Nilay Kumar( IBPS PO 2018) in his own words.

Success Story of Nilay Kumar – Details of the Journey

Hi, I am Nilay, a Mechanical Engineer from the 2018 batch. Born and raised in Samastipur, Bihar. I have completed engineering from Durgapur, West Bengal.

During my engineering, I got placed in two companies but was disinterested in joining them, due to my lack of interest in that sector as there are not many opportunities for an entry-level engineer to showcase their capabilities.

After I completed my graduation, while looking into the options for further career and job opportunities, I received the notification of IBPS PO in the mail. I went through it, then I looked for the syllabus and decided that I should go and try to solve some previous year papers before filling the form. When I solved them, I felt like, I should do it so I filled the form and after that, I started my preparations. I went to quora and youtube to find what should be the sources to rely on and what to neglect. My advice would be that one should never get disheartened by the marks of mock tests and the words of relatives, they both prepare you to perform better if you tackle them well.

Another thing I would like to say is that the syllabus of IBPS PO is very vast. If you are weak at some portion and do not have enough time to get it better, then you should make your other parts which are better, strongest. As in my case, I had problems in solving puzzles, I tried but somehow it took more time and in banking all that matters is timing. I left solving puzzles to when I would be in the examination hall. My prelims was on 14th October at 2nd shift, only 9 questions were there out of the puzzle and the sectional cutoff of last year was 11. I solved all the 9 questions and as I had time, I was able to solve a 2 mark puzzle too, attempted 11 in reasoning and got all eleven correct.

Another mistake I would ask everyone to avoid is, if the paper seems tough to you, then it is tough for all, Do not go and make an attempt if you are not dead sure about the answer. Like during my IBPS PO mains examination, this year the paper was quite tough and I went across the DI section in the paper 5 times in search of the questions which can be attempted, and found easier ones there. There are always easy questions in the paper, which carry enough marks to get you qualified. Go and search them and you will make to the final list.

The most important thing in the preparation is analyzing every mock test of yours, the rule of 3 for 1 means for every hour of mock test, spend at least 3 hours analyzing where you went wrong, why you chose that option so u do not end up repeating the same mistake again. Always remember dedication is everything and it’s important for one to do it wholeheartedly, while the rest of the world was buying gold artifacts on the auspicious day of dhanteras, I bought myself an olive board’s po-mains test series and ended up gifting myself this success today.

My Section-wise Preparation Strategy:

Aptitude-

I read at many places that Quantitative Aptitude by Arun Sharma is a great book for bank exams. I started practicing from it, and trust me if you are thorough up to level 2 questions in Arun Sharma, quants will be a cakewalk for you. For concepts whenever I felt a problem I used to watch youtube lectures from Arun Sir and Sumit Sir, they helped a lot. Practicing questions from Oliveboard was the main turning point that prepared me for the speed and need of the examination.

English-

English played an important role in my selection, as in my prelims out of 56.75, I scored 26.50 in

English(27 attempts) and in mains, I got 27 in English out of 40(31 attempts) and 17 in Descriptive paper. In English, I started with Objective English by SP Bakshi and Word power made easy by Norman Lewis. Oliveboard’s questions in English are a gem, they prepare you and will bring the best out of you if done properly.

Logical Reasoning-

For this part I prepared from M. K. Pandey’s book “Analytical Reasoning”. Rest the Oliveboard test series has great sets of questions to practice and you ‘ll realize as to why, when and where you went wrong and accordingly  you’ll improve and perform well.

GK/GA-

This is the Achilles heel for many aspirants and people get confused from which month one should start and till when should the reading be continued. I started my mains preparation from 31st October(after seeing my prelims result). When I saw the previous year papers, I was surprised to see the immensity and realized that ibps can ask anything and it is highly unpredictable too. You need to be prepared with the budgetary allocation to different government schemes, banking terms to sports, military and naval exercises and even Nobel prize winners, like IBPS, covers everything under its umbrella. I covered all about the budgets from the budget speech by the finance minister, I studied current affairs from 1st week of August to 1st week of November (7 questions came from July 1st week and I was caught off guard). I used to make notes in Evernote like if u read something in the Affairscloud capsule, analyze it and write it in Evernote. This helped me in store the information in my subconscious memory and I was able to answer the questions.

Interview-

The interview covers everything from your hometown to your state, about yourself, your alma

mater, your banking knowledge, your presentation skills and above all how you handle yourself. Do you feel nervous or get blank under surprised questions or you handle it well, that’s all they test. As it is always said confidence is the key. I prepared my banking portion from the same mentioned above. I had a WhatsApp group for the interview where we used to conduct mock interviews and amongst us we used to rate each other, pose surprise questions, grilling sessions and all, this improved me a lot more than I thought.

How Oliveboard Helped Me:

Innovative questions and great analysis of oliveboard provided me with an analysis of where I stood in the competition with my percentile. The tough questions prepared me for the examination in a better manner than a solo preparation would have and I was able to go deeper into my preparations. For every step, both prelims and mains oliveboard has a great source of questions and its analysis is on point. If I am in today, then Oliveboard has played a great role behind me being successful.

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