The analysis of the SBI PO 2018 Prelim exam held on the 1st of July 2018 has been presented below. Similar to the recently conducted SBI Clerk prelim exam, the structure of even this exam presented a sectional time limit, with no navigability allowed between any section, and each section was time bound for 20 minutes.

Snap shot of the Exam:

No of choices per question – 5

Negative marking: 0.25 of the marks assigned to each question

As per the feedback received from our students who appreared for this exam, the exam can be rated as easy to moderate. Although no major changes were reported in the prescribed pattern of the exam, few changes which are worth noting are:

• Introduction of a sectional time limit
• Unlike the bank exams held in recent past, there was no uniformity in both the number of questions asked, and the question types in each of the sections, among any of the slots.

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

Quantitative Aptitude:

According to the feedback received, this section can be classified as easy to moderate.

All other aspects of this section were on par with those of the same exam held last year, with the exception of two pet PO Main areas – Data Comparisons and Data Sufficiency – that surprisingly popped up in this section of prelim exam.

Since the difficulty level was moderate, an attempt of around 16-18 questions within the allocated time limit of 20 minutes can be rated as good number of attempts.

Following table depicts the number of questions from various topics, which were asked in this section.

Reasoning Ability:

This section has been tagged as 'Moderate'.

Because the questions here were lengthy and time-consuming, the difficulty level of this section was raised a couple of notches higher than before. There was variation in both the number of questions asked, as also in their presence, across slots.

• The number of questions on Puzzles was as low as 12 in one slot, and as high as 27 in another.
• The questions on Input-Output and Data Sufficiency which were in general asked in main exam found a place in this section of prelim exam.
• The difficulty level of puzzles was high as compared to the exam that was held in 2017.

Since the difficulty level was moderate, an attempt of around 14-16 questions within the allocated time limit of 20 minutes can be rated as good number of attempts.

Following table depicts the number of questions from various topics, which were asked in this section

English Language :

This section was rated as the easiest among the three sections in the exam.

Along lines similar to the other two aforementioned sections, questions presented in various slots were different in number, and their presence too was not uniform. Though candidates were tested in all the important areas, the weightage varied as a result of the above mentioned change in the manner of presentation, and this is noteworthy.

Questions on Error Identification were of two differnt types, one on the conventional, commonly asked and formatted one, and the other were on - “Identifying the grammatically correct one from the given choices”. There were a few questions from 'Sentence starters' too, which were hitherto alien to the Prelims part of the SBI PO exams.

Thus, about 15-17 questions in the English section could easily have been solved in the 20 minutes alloted to this section.

Following table depicts the number of questions from various topics, which were asked in this section.

Over all, the difficulty level of the exam can be pegged as Easy to Moderate.