The State Bank of India has successfully conducted the SBI Clerk 2016 Prelims examination on 22nd of May, 2016. All four slots of yesterday’s exam are over. Yesterday was day-1 of online SBI Clerk 2016 preliminary exam and the exam will continue to be held till the 5th of June, 2016. The online main exam will be conducted later in June 2016. Candidates are curious to know the intricacies of this exam as it is being held for the first time. In this article, we provide a detailed & topic-wise analysis for each section of the exam. We have kept in mind all the slots of the exam. Also, we will analyse the expected overall & sectional cut-offs of this exam.
The SBI Clerk Prelim had a total of 100 questions distributed among 3 sections and the time duration of the exam was 60 minutes. Let’s take a look at topic wise analysis for each of these sections.
1) Reasoning Ability
Total marks : 35 marks
Topic Number of questions
Seating arrangements 5 (1 sets)
Puzzle 5 (1 set)
Alphanumerical series 5
Number series 5
Coding-decoding 5
Inequality 5
Miscellaneous 5
The difficulty level of this section was easy to moderate. The questions based on arrangements were of easy to moderate level and for well prepared candidates, these presented a good opportunity to score some easy marks in the exam. Surprisingly, there was not a single question on Syllogism. Questions based on most of the topics in this section were easy and did not require detailed effort. Among the three sections, this was the easiest and presented students with a good opportunity to score well.
2) Verbal aptitude
Total marks : 30
Topic Number of questions
Spotting error 05
Para jumbles 05
Spelling Mistakes 05
Cloze test 05
Reading comprehension 10
The difficulty level of Verbal Aptitude questions can be said to vary between easy to moderate. The passages given for the reading comprehension in all the slots were a story based passage and were quite easy to solve. Also, topics like ‘cloze test’ and ‘para jumbles’ were story based too. Because of this reason, the para-jumbles were easy to solve.
3) Quantitative Aptitude
Total marks : 35
Topic Number of questions
Data Interpretation 05 (1 set)
Number series 05
Simplification 10
Arithmetic 15
The difficulty level of this section can be once again said to vary between easy to moderate. But as per the reviews from few of the candidates, this section (specifically Arithmetic questions) did have some time-consuming problems which required extensive calculations. Also, one surprising aspect of the exam was that questions based on quadratic equations were missing. Also, there were 10 questions based on simplification. There was only one set of DI based on tabular graph and this did not pose any real challenge.
Overall Analysis :
Overall, the question paper was quite easy to solve. The questions were easy, straightforward & less time consuming. Story based Reading comprehension, para jumbles & cloze test reduced the time required to complete the Verbal Aptitude section. Candidates with strong basics & enough daily practice could have easily sailed through the exam.
Overall Cut-offs :
The overall cutoff for SBI Clerk 2016 Prelims exam will be state-wise. We are providing here an expected range of cutoff category wise.
Category Cut-off marks
General 45-47
OBC 40-45
SC 33-36
ST 23-26
Candidates should note that the above mentioned cut-offs may vary in the range of +/- 3 marks. (Further, there is a chance that the cutoffs may be lower than this – however, it is unlikely that the cutoffs would be higher than this.)
Sectional Cut-off :
Sectional cut-offs per section will be around 6-7 marks. So, do not worry about sectional cutoffs. Clearing sectional cutoff is an easy task.
Ideal number of attempts :
Let us now consider the minimum number of questions that candidates should have attempted to secure their chances of clearing SBI Clerk 2016 Prelims and get selected for Mains.
Based on the difficulty level of the questions, we can say candidates should have ideally solved around 55-60+ questions out of 100 questions (to be on safe side) with around 90% accuracy.
So, in conclusion, we can say that, the first ever SBI Clerk 2016 Preliminary exam paper was quite easy. But the introduction of some major changes in the expected topic wise pattern (no syllogism or quadratic equations) has meant that some candidates were challenged in the exam. Candidates who devoted a good amount of time for daily practice before the exam will not have to face any problem to clear prelims.
Best of luck!!!