SBI PO Preliminary Exam - Time Manegement Strategy

Published on Thursday, April 16, 2015
Many of the readers asked a questions that how they will solve 100 questions within 60. While there is no General awareness and computer knowledge sections.

One thing that everybody should know - 2000 * 20 = 40,000 candidates will be selected so cutoff will be decided on the basis of marks secured by all the candidates. If 60 minutes are not sufficient for you then this much time is not sufficient for any candidate appearing for the exam.

Many of you might be over-confident about this exam, let me make it clear that at least 15 lac candidates will appear for SBI PO preliminary exam. So approximately 1 out of 40 candidates will be selected in the Preliminary exam.

Before making your strategy, I recommend these links

SBI Prelim model paper pdf

SBI Prelim study material bundle

1) It's all about right selection of questions

Forget about solving 100 questions within 60 minutes, an average candidate can't even read all the 100 questions within 60 minutes. Cutoff should be around 45-50, so you made make your plan accordingly. 

2) Skip Sentence rearrangements


Yes I said this!

I have seen dozens of my students appearing for bank exams. They waste lots of time in solving sentence arrangement questions but most of the times their accuracy remains very low. 

So my suggestion is - Skip these questions.

3) Time allotment 

Optimum time allotment :-

English - 15 minutes
Quantitative aptitude - 22 minutes
Reasoning - 23 minutes

4) Art of choosing easy questions

This exam demands candidates to choose easy questions and skip hard questions. Answer this simple question :-

Can you solve two reading comprehensions within 12 minutes ?
If your answer is no then attempt only Cloze test and vocabulary questions from one RC and solve second RC completely. In case there is shortage of time then attempt just Cloze test and vocabulary questions from both RCs.

5) Practice

What will happen if there is an easy exam ?
Cutoffs will surpass the roof!

So if you practice daily, you will quickly make out that whether you can solve a particular question within 1 minute or not.

Can answer a question within 1 minute ?
If answer is NO then skip the question.

Learn to find and skip difficult Data interpretation and Reasoning puzzles.

Mantra to achieve success in SBI PO Prelim exam is
Find and attempt 60 easy questions

I will post at least 1 model paper every week. Model Paper 2 will be uploaded on 20 April 2015.

Stay updated.




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