Dear readers,

The much-awaited IBPS PO 2015 Mains exam was conducted today. I am sure all of you would be curious about the questions asked in the exam, the difficulty level and the expected cut-off. This article gives you a detailed & topic-wise analysis of each section in both the exam slots. Also, we will look at the expected overall and sectional cut-offs for this exam.

This 2-hour test comprised 200 questions, spread across 5 sections. The sections were as follows:

English Language :

Total Marks: 40

Topic                                No. of questions

Spot the Error                             05

Para Jumbles                              05

Cloze Test                                   05

Reading Comprehension           20

Sentence Improvement             05

The difficulty level of this section was moderate. Interestingly, this year, this section had 2 passages and 20 questions on RC. Earlier, some students used to ignore the RC questions since reading the passage took a lot of time. In this changed scenario, this strategy would not work.

2) Reasoning Ability:

Total Marks: 50

Topic                          No. of questions

Syllogism                                 05

Arrangements                          10

Puzzle                                      10

Input-Output                              05

Data Sufficiency                        05

Logical Reasoning                    10

Assumption                               05

The difficulty level of this section was moderate to tough. Many students have indicated that this section was the toughest one in this test. The sets/puzzles were not very simple and were time-taking. Further, questions based on assumption were somewhat subjective in nature. 

3) Quantitative Aptitude

Total marks: 50

Topic                               No. of questions

Data Interpretation                    19

DI Caselet                                  05

Number series                           05

Data Sufficiency                         06

Miscellaneous                            15 

The difficulty level of this section was moderate to tough. Interestingly, this section had more DI questions than usual. Also, some of the DI sets had more than 5 questions. Thus, the importance of the DI portion was higher this year.

4) General Awareness

Total marks: 40

In this section, questions based on current affairs and banking awareness were asked. Current affairs questions were mainly related to appointments, awards, committees, book & authors, among others. A few of the questions were based on static GK.

The difficulty level of this section was moderate. 

5) Computer Awareness 

Total Marks: 20

Questions asked in this section were simple and easy to solve. The difficulty level of this section was easy.

As we have analysed each section topic-wise along with their level of difficulty, let’s now look at the expected overall and sectional cut-offs for this exam.

Overall Cut-offs:

Category                Cut-off Marks

General                            80

OBC                                 78

SC                                    68

ST                                     50

Candidates should note that the above mentioned cut-offs may vary in the range of +/- 3. (Further, there is some chance that the cutoffs may be lower than this – however, it is unlikely that the cutoffs would be higher than this.)

Sectional Cut-offs:

Section                                General           OBC/SC/ST 

English Language                     8                         6              

Reasoning Ability                      9                         7

Quantitative Aptitude                7                         5

General Awareness                  10                        7

Computer Section                     11                         9 

Ideal Number of Attempts:

Let us now consider the minimum number of questions that candidates should have attempted to secure their chances of clearing IBPS PO 2015 Mains and get selected for interview-round. 

Based on the types of questions and the difficulty level of the test, candidates should ideally have attempted around 105 to 110 out of total 200 questions (to be on the safe side). With around 90% accuracy, candidates would then easily cross the overall cut-off. (Do note that fewer attempts would also be sufficient to clear the cutoff, especially if the candidate has higher accuracy.)

So, we can conclude that the difficulty level of this exam was slightly higher than last year’s IBPS PO CWE written test. However, you should be confident that your hard work and practice will surely pay off.

Best of Luck!!!