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
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
Sectional
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
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!!!