IBPS has announced a new recruitment process for Clerks from 2015 onwards. Selection will be done in a three-phased manner: Preliminary Examination, Main Examination and Interview.

The first ever Preliminary Examination for Clerks was conducted by IBPS on 5th Deec 2015. The other dates on which the Preliminary Examination is scheduled are 6th / 12/ 13th Dec 2015

Snapshot of the Exam:

No of choices per question – 5
Negative marking – 0.25 of the marks assigned to each question

The analysis of the above mentioned session, as reported by our students, is given below:

Numerical Ability:

According to the feedback received from students who appeared for this exam, this section can be rated as moderate and time-consuming.

The 10 questions on Simplifications can be rated between easy to moderate .There were 5 questions on Data Interpretation and they were lengthy.

The other 5 questions on Number series too ranged between easy to moderate . Individual questions in this section were 15 in number; they comprised 1 - 2 from each topic. According to the feedback sent in by our students, some of the questions were tedious and calculation-based. Thus, a complete knowledge of concepts was mandatory in order to solve them.

A student could therefore, solve around 15-17 questions in approximately 20 minutes if he chose judiciously.

Reasoning: 

This section has been given an 'Easy' tag.

There were no questions on Deductions. The topic on Coding- Decoding drew 5 moderate (set based) and 3 easy (individual) questions. Symbol-Notation based conclusions were 5 in number. In line with the rest of the questions in this section, the 2 on Blood relations were equally easy ones.

There were 3 puzzles, one each on distribution, linear arrangements and circular arrangement. Puzzles were easy but more long-drawn than other questions. Thus, almost 18-20 questions could possibly be solved in about 20-25 minutes in this section. There were 5 questions on Set of Numbers which were easy to handle.

The topic -wise split, as reported by our students, is as given below:

English Language: 

This section too was along expected lines and can be rated as a moderately difficult section.

The 5 questions from the Close test passage that appeared in the exam (as reported by our students) can be labelled as easy. The 5 questions asked from jumbled statements in the PFQ part were moderate.

There was a lone RC passage with a total of ten questions. The RC and Cloze passage were based on Stories.

There were 10 questions on Grammar. The 5 questions on error identification were moderate and 5 questions on misspelt words / inappropriate usage were easy to moderate.

Thus, about 15-18 questions in the English section could easily be solved in 15 minutes.

The break-up of the questions is as follows:

Over all, the difficulty level of the paper in this particular slot can be rated as Moderate.

It has been reported that the Online IBPS RRB Clerk CWE IV examination held in September 2015 was difficult as compared to the one held in 2014.

The snap shot of the exam is given below.

The analysis as reported by our students, is given below.

Quantitative Aptitude: 

According to the feedback received from our students who appeared for this exam, this section can be rated as difficult and time-consuming.

There were a total of 15 questions on simplifications. There were 5 questions on DI which were easy to solve. Individual questions in this section were based on topics like ERPV, time and distance, time and work, averages, profit and loss, partnership, mensuration, simple and compound interest . Most of the questions involved a lot of calculations and were time-consuming.

The overall section can be rated as difficult.

In almost all the slots, the distribution of questions across various topics remained the same.

Reasoning:

This section has been given an 'Easy to Moderate' tag.

The emphasis here was on puzzles. There were 15 questions on puzzles that were not easy to crack. There were 5 questions each on deductions, symbol / notation based conclusions and coding-decoding. There were questions from topics like Blood relations, Direction sense, series etc...

In almost all the slots, the distribution of questions across various topics remained the same.

English Language:

The pattern of this section was almost along expected lines. There were 10 questions on Reading Comprehension. The close test comprised 10 questions. There were 10 questions from Grammar (5 questions each from Error Identification and Phrase Replacement), 5 questions each on PFQ and FIB. Overall, this section can be rated as moderate.

In almost all the slots, the distribution of questions across various topics remained the same.

General Awareness:

The majority of questions asked were on Current Affairs and Banking. The other questions were on Capitals, Currencies, Movies, Sports, Books & Authors, Science & Technology. There were questions from stock GK also. Students report this section as moderate.

Computer Knowledge:

There were 40 questions on Computers, and they dealt with MS Office, Networking, Operating System, Internet, Computer Architecture etc. This section could be rated as easy.