Being Banker

A No-nonsense
guide to crack
IBPS PO

Rohit Agarwal

Being Banker
A No-nonsense guide to crack IBPS PO
(Updated with latest change in pattern)

By
Rohit Agarwal

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

Copyright Rohit Agarwal, 2016

All right reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form
or by any electronic or mechanical means including
information storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the author.
Disclaimer: This book is designed to guide you.
The content of this book is the sole expression and
opinion of the author. Author shall not be liable for
any damage. You are responsible for your own
decisions, choices, actions and results.

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

Dedication
Thanks to almighty god to bring obstacles in my
path, these obstacles helped me to grow.
Thanks to my dear parents to support me throughout
this journey.
Thanks to my dear friends to be with me, even in
most difficult time.

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

CONTENTS
Preface
About the Author
Testimonial

Motivation
Understanding Exam Pattern
Coaching Confusion
80/20 Principle For Examination
How To Make Smart Guess
How To Tackle General Awareness
How To Tackle Computer Knowledge
How To Tackle English
How To Tackle Quant
How To Tackle Reasoning
All About Test Series
Finale
How To Tackle Interview
Frequently Asked Questions

Request

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

Preface
Indian economy witnessed huge growth in private
sector after the globalization of Indian economy in
1991. Private sector created new jobs providing
employment to lakhs of Indian youth. But the
darker side of the coin emerged after the 2008
recession. Thousands of young people lost their jobs
and those who were in job were underpaid.
Although the effect of recession was not as huge as
it was in USA, but this recession forced people to
think about government sector.
While the world largest economy USA has
suffered from banks closure, India is so far safe
largely due to government support. Surprisingly
Indian banking sector witnessed huge growth
despite recession. This created lakhs of new jobs in
Indian banking sector. One of such job is
Probationary officer, which is most sought after job
among Indians youth. There are many reasons for
this including high growth rate (Bank PO has the

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

potential to reach up to the position of chairman),

decent salary and other perks.
Every year millions of youth apply for this
post, but only few thousand made it to the final list.
Because of this huge competition, candidates feel
insecure. There are certain elements who try to
misguide these candidates by taking advantage of
their insecurity. These elements try to show that it is
not possible to get your dream bank without joining
their coaching class. Thus insecure minds join their
coaching and lose their money. Besides joining a
coaching is not a guarantee of success. Thats why I
decided to write this book to give the correct
guidance to these candidates.
I Hope this book will serve its purpose. If I
will be able to help even a single candidate, I think
my hard work succeeded.

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

About the author

Rohit Agarwal is IBPS PO Topper, Test preparation
expert and most viewed writer on world largest
Q&A website Quora.com. He has completed his
engineering from a reputed government college. He
has been placed in number of private and public
organizations, but refused to join. He is big fan of
self study and motivating students to study at home.
Currently he is guiding aspirants of IBPS and other
government exams through www.beingbanker.com

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

Testimonial
The book is a good source of guidance for people
preparing for PO exam.Thank you for making me
believe that I could crack the exam without joining
coaching center.
- Jerlin Regi from Pudukkottai

Dear sir, u have covered very effectively most of

the aspects in ur book Being Banker. i m vry
thankful 2 u as u shared it for d benefit of desiring
candidates . hope i can make full use of it.

Thank

you
-Divya Verma from Satna

thank you rohit for this book...it will be really

helpful for my fellow aspirants.
-Ashutosh vishnoi from Roorkee

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

I have read your book "being banker" and i must

say it offered great insights. It is an amazing book.
-Divya Sareen from Chandigarh

Note: Due to time and space constraints, it is not

possible for me to publish all testimonials. Thats
why I am publishing only early testimonials which I
received on my website as well as on my email id.

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

80/20 Principle For Examination

Pareto principle (Given by Famous Italian
economist Vilfredo Pareto) states that, 80% of the
wealth belongs to 20% of the population. This
principle has been generalized and used heavily in
management as Roughly 80% of the effects come
from 20% of the causes. So according to this
principle you must focus on that 20% .I believes
that this principle can be used in IBPS PO
preparation. According to me:
Your 80% marks come with 20% efforts.
If you are like me and believe in this
principle, you can easily avoid unnecessary work.
Let me start with some facts related to IBPS PO V:
More than 20 lakh candidate attempted IBPS PO,
but only 40000 candidates got interview call.
In Mains, Cutoff for general was 76. It means all
those who scored more than 76 were called for
interview( Except those who were not able to clear
sectional cutoff)

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

1. The problem is that most candidates find it difficult

to score 76 marks out of 200 marks in 120 minutes.
While there are other candidates (including me),
who score more than the required cutoff in just 25
minutes. Let us first see my score in mains:
Computer Knowledge: 19/20
General Awareness: 32.50/40
English Language: 29.75/40
Total score in three subjects: 81.25/100
Now you can see that I scored more than the
required overall cutoff in just 3 subjects, that too in
just 25 minutes. So I can easily use the remaining
time in other two subjects i.e. reasoning and quant.
Although with change in pattern, you are no more
allowed to use the remaining time in other section.
But still you can take this example as an insight that
it is the strategy that matters the most.
2. While other spend their too much time and energy
during their preparation in searching for shortcut to

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

solve quant and reasoning question, I just focus on

understanding the concept as I think that we have
sufficient time to solve any question during
examination. Even with latest pattern, 40 minutes
for Quant and Reasoning is more than sufficient.
You are not expected to solve all those 50
questions. What you need is to be rock solid in
concepts and then choose 25 questions and solve
them with 100% accuracy. In my case, my
understanding of concepts helped me to attempt
questions with 100% accuracy (In Pre I attempted
76 and got 74.5 marks while in Mains I attempted
130 and got 125 marks. My accuracy in quant and
reasoning in IBPS Pre and Mains was 100%. In GA,
computer and English, my accuracy was above
90%), while others make too many mistake because
they dont focus on understanding concepts. Their
lack of understanding make their preparation
difficult and time consuming, so even after putting
too much efforts they got less marks. But if you
follow my strategy, you can easily prepare for 80%
marks with 20% efforts.

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

Scoring Quotient: Throughout this course, I will

use Scoring quotient to tell you how scoring a
subject or a topic is. Any subject or topic will have
low, medium or high scoring quotient. I have used
following criteria to define the scoring quotient of
any subject or topic:
Time require in exam to solve a question from a
particular subject or topic. If a subject requires less
amount of time to score 1 mark in comparison to
another subject, it will have high scoring quotient.
Time require to prepare a particular subject or topic.
If a topic can be prepared in 1 hour, while other
topic require 1 day, obviously first topic will have
high scoring quotient.
P.S: I have used my personal experience

apart from above two criteria in order to

derive scoring quotient of any subject or
topic. It is neither necessary nor feasible to
describe to exact method here, as I dont
want to make this book lengthy. I can easily

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

add hundreds of page in this book, but my

priority is to guide you in as little time as
possible. I dont want you to waste too much
time in understanding the strategy that you
dont have time left for preparation. So
dont focus the number of pages, just focus
on the knowledge you acquire here.

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

How to make Smart Guess

As all of you know, in Pre and Mains there is
negative marking of 0.25 marks. Because of this
negative marking, different candidate approach any
question in different way. But most commonly there
are following three kinds of candidates:
1. Those who attempt only when they are 100% sure.
2. Those who make blind guess and can attempt
almost any question.
3. Those who attempt only after making smart guess
(Including me).

Let us discuss in detail about each type of

candidates.
1. These kinds of candidates are very afraid while
attempting any question. They constantly think
what if it will wrong. In this state of mind, they
attempt less number of questions and thus get fewer
marks. Although their accuracy is 100%, so right

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

after exam, they are pretty sure about their marks.

While attempting quant and reasoning
questions, you should follow this strategy.
2. These kinds of candidates worry too much about
imaginary cutoff and to clear that cutoff, they
attempt even those questions about which they
know nothing. They simply click on any option
without reading the question. This strategy is fatal
and you must away from this strategy.
3. This is the best strategy and those who follow this
strategy gets higher marks in comparison to other
candidates. But remember you should use this
strategy only in GA, Computer and English.
Never try to attempt any question in quant and
reasoning using any kind of guess. All questions in
Quant and reasoning should be attempted only if
you are 100% sure.
Now we will discuss what smart guess is and how
to use it.
Smart Guess: Unlike blind guess where you
simply click on any option without thinking, smart

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

guess strategy involves eliminating wrong

options. You have to eliminate three wrong options
and then you can choose between the remaining two
options. Remember you can use this strategy only
after eliminating 3 wrong options. In case there is
None of these, you have to eliminate 2 options
and then choose between remaining 2 options.
While choosing between these two options, you can
always make you of your intuition (I always relies
on my intuition).
Now the science behind this strategy is that
if you are sure that 3 options are wrong, and there
are only 2 options remains, then the probability that
each option is correct is 50%.
So if you attempt 4 questions using smart guess:
2 will be right= 2 marks
2 will be wrong= -0.5 marks
So total marks= 1.5 marks

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

Let us compare this strategy with other two

strategies:
1. In first strategy, you will not attempt these 4
questions as you are not 100% sure, so you simply
leave these questions and get 1.5 marks less than
one who use smart guess strategy.
2. In second case, you will make blind guess (In that
case probability of correct answer is 25%, so you
get 1 answer right and 3 answer wrong, thus get
0.25 marks) and get 1.25 marks less than one who
use smart guess strategy.
Those who are unable to understand the science
behind smart guess dont worry. Simply
understand that this is the best strategy to
follow.
Let us take an example and try to understand how to
use this strategy:
Q: Which of the following is output device?
a) Mouse

18

b) Keyboard

c) xyz

d)abc

Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO

I have intensely put these options to show that you

need not know the correct answer, what is necessary
is that you must eliminate the wrong answers. So in
this case, you can easily eliminate mouse and
keyboard as they are input device, so even if you
dont know about xyz and abc, you can easily
choose any one option as you are sure that one of
them is correct.
So if you want to maximize your marks, start using
this techniques in mock test and then finally in real
examination. You will surely get higher marks.

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Being Banker : A No-nonsense guide to crack

IBPS PO