Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical
1. What is Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical?
IBPS Clerk is a Common Written Exam (CWE), conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) for recruitment to nationalized banks in India to fill vacancies for clerical level jobs. CWE is a prerequisite for selection of personnel for Clerical cadre posts in Public Sector Banks.
IBPS Clerical is one exam that many students look forward to as this is one of the best opportunities to work in the banking sector and fulfill your dream. The career growth and lucrative salary and perks are some of the benefits that lure lakhs of students to apply for this recruitment on which only thousands of students manage to secure a seat. One of the reasons that many students look forward to this recruitment is that there is no Interview for IBPS Clerk. Candidates can apply for a specific state in which they want to be posted unlike Probationary Officers, which is a pan India job and can be posted anywhere. The only thing that a candidate is required to remember while filling a specific state is that he/she must be fluent in the local language of that place because there will be a language proficiency test. Keep on reading to know about eligibility, exam pattern, syllabus; previous year’s cut off, exam analysis, and other details.
2. Why Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical?
A Bank Clerk directly handles and takes care of the customer responsibilities and deals directly with all the customer services provided by the Bank. The various roles of a Bank Clerk in Bank are:
• Attending to customer’s requirements like passing of cheques, withdrawal slips etc. in Bank
• Ensuring compliance to KYC (Know Your Customer) guidelines by RBI at the time of opening of Savings, Current Bank Accounts etc.
• Explaining the salient features of bank’s products to customer
• Maintaining and updating accounts of customers
• Follow up of customer by calling them in case of Advances
3. How to prepare?
- Understanding the bank exam pattern and syllabus along with proper planning is required.
- Priority should be given in every section as sectional cut-offs are very vital for a candidate to clear the exam.
- A scheduled routine is required so that the candidates have enough time to prepare and analyse on the basis of their tests regularly.
- Time management needs to be taken care of as there’s a stipulated time in the examination to complete the bank exam paper. Hence, candidates need to maintain speed with accuracy in order to complete the paper on time. Practicing with a stopwatch can be fruitful while preparing for the bank exams.
- Candidates must revise after each topic so that they can retain concepts and do not forget it during the examination.
- The candidates are advised to practice through mock papers, sample papers and previous years bank exams question papers to do well in each section.
- Hard-work with determination is required for the aspirants to prepare for the SBI/IBPS Clerk exam.
- Time Management: Manage your time in such a way that you are able to go through all the questions at least once in the exam. The reason behind it is there are many questions which are deliberately designed to be complex and end up grabbing the lion’s share of time.
- Speed: Although speed matters a lot, it can sometimes come at the cost of accuracy. Generally the following type of questions requires speed.
4. Important materials:
Syllabus:
- Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical Syllabus (Prelims) will have three sections- English Language, Numerical Ability, and Reasoning Ability.
- Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical Syllabus (Main) will have four sections- General/ Financial Awareness, General English, Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning Ability, and Computer Aptitude.
Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical Syllabus for Prelims Exam
Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerk Syllabus for Preliminary exam is described below in detail:
| Sections | Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical Syllabus |
| English Language | Reading Comprehension, Cloze Test, Para jumbles, Sentence Completion, Phrase Replacement, Error Detection, Fill in the blanks, Inference, Connectors, Vocabulary, Word Usage, etc |
| Numerical Ability | Data Interpretation (Bar Graph, Line Chart, Tabular, Pie Chart), Inequalities/ Quadratic Equations, Number Series, Simplification and Approximation, Percentages, Average, Ratio and Proportion, Partnership, Profit and Loss, Simple Interest & Compound Interest, Problem on Ages, Data Sufficiency, Speed, Distance and Time, Work, Time and Wages, Probability, Mensuration, Permutation and Combination, Problems on Boats and Stream, Problems on Trains, Mixture and Alligation, Pipes and Cisterns. |
| Reasoning Ability | Advance Puzzles, Seating Arrangements, Distance and Direction, Blood Relations, Syllogism, Order and Ranking, Coding-Decoding, Machine Input-Output, Inequalities, Alphabet and Number Series and Chinese coding |
Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical Syllabus for Main Exam
| Sections | IBPS Clerk Syllabus |
| General/ Financial Awareness | Current Affairs and Static Gk related to banking, economic and financial sector, Latest Reports and Data such as Budget, GDP, Repo rate, Interest rate, tax rate, etc, Basics of Financial Institutions such as RBI, SEBI, IRDA, World Bank and IMF, their headquarters location, name of their head/ chief/ chairman, etc, Financial and Banking Abbreviations, Acronyms, terminologies, Government Schemes and Policies |
| General English | Reading Comprehension, Cloze Test, Paraphrase, Sentence Improvement, Formation and Reconstruction, One-word substitution, Para Jumbles, Match-ups, Fill in the blanks, Vocabulary, etc |
| Reasoning Ability | Analogy, Syllogism, Passage and Conclusions, Statement and Conclusion, Statement and Assumptions, Statement and Arguments, Decision Making, Assertion and Reasoning, Ranking and Sequence, Coding-Decoding, Blood Relations, Alphabet/ Numeric Series, Direction Sense, Figure Series, Input-output, Sitting Arrangement |
| Computer Aptitude | History of computers, Basics of computer’s hardware and software, Short Cut Keys, Windows operating system, Internet, Networking, Basics of MS-Office: MS-word, MS-Excel, MS-PowerPoint, Database, Hacking, Security Tools and Viruses |
| Quantitative Aptitude | Data Interpretation, Pie charts, Bar graphs, Line charts, Tables, Mixture and Allegations, Profit, Loss and Discount, Percentages, Partnership, Ratio and Proportion, Averages, Simple and compound interest, Equations, Time and Work, Speed, Distance and Time, Clocks, Volume and Surface Area, Permutation and combinations, Probability, Trigonometry and Mensuration |
a. E-books:
Bank Clerk/IBPS Clerical Books for English Language
| Name of IBPS Clerk English Books | Publisher |
| English Language for SBI/ IBPS Bank PO/ SO/ Clerk/ RRB Exams | Disha |
| English Language Topic-wise Solved Papers (2010-2020) | Disha |
| English for Bank Exams | S. Chand |
IBPS Clerk Quantitative Aptitude/ Numerical Ability Books
| Name of IBPS Clerk Numerical Ability Books | Publisher |
| Quantitative Aptitude Topic-wise Solved Papers (2010 – 2018) | Disha |
| Bank PO Quantitative Aptitude Chapterwise Solved Papers (2000 – 2017) | Arihant |
| Numerical Ability 18 Days Wonder | S.Chand |
IBPS Clerk Books for Reasoning Ability
| Name of IBPS Clerk Reasoning Ability Books | Publisher |
| Reasoning Ability Topic-wise Solved Papers (2010 – 2020) | Disha |
| The reasoning for Competitive Examinations | Pearson |
| A Modern Approach to Logical Reasoning | S. Chand |
IBPS Clerk Books for General/ Financial Awareness
| Name of IBPS Clerk GK Books | Publisher |
| General Awareness/ Banking/ Economy Topic-wise Solved Papers (2010- 2020) | Disha |
| Banking and Financial Awareness | Kiran’s |
| Banking Awareness | Arihant |
IBPS Clerk Books for Computer Aptitude
| Name of IBPS Clerk Computer Knowledge Books | Publisher/ Writer |
| Computer Knowledge | Disha |
| Computer Awareness | Arihant |
| Objective Computer Knowledge and Literacy | Kiran |
b. Videos:
How to crack Bank Clerk:
English preparation tips for Bank Clerk exam:
Bank Clerk Prelims:
Bank Clerk Mains strategy:
Perfect strategy to crack Bank Clerk:
Important topics for IBPS Clerical exam:
IBPS Clerk preparation:
5. Previous year question papers with answers:
IBPS Clerical 2018 Prelims question paper:
https://gradeup.co/liveData/f/2019/8/ibps_clerk_question_paper_2018_with_answers_13.pdf
IBPS Clerical 2018 Mains question paper:
https://gradeup.co/liveData/f/2019/9/ibps_clerk_mains_questions_paper_2018_53.pdf
IBPS Clerical 2017 Prelims question paper:
https://gradeup.co/liveData/f/2018/9/ibps-clerk-prelims-question-paper-2017.pdf-99.pdf
IBPS Clerk 2017 Mains question paper:
https://gradeup.co/liveData/f/2018/12/IBPS%20Clerk%20Main%202017_English-PDF.pdf-95.pdf
IBPS Clerical 2016 Prelims question paper:
https://gradeup.co/liveData/f/2018/9/ibps-clerk-prelims-2016-question-paper.pdf-44.pdf
IBPS Clerical 2016 Prelims question paper:
https://gradeup.co/liveData/f/2018/9/ibps-clerk-mains-2016-question-paper.pdf-22.pdf
IBPS Clerical 2015 sample paper:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By05k5fbtzEbNGI0YlExMndRRnc/view
6. Important tips:
- Figure out a systematic study plan.
- Have access to the best study material.
- Refer to the best books for preparation.
- Solve mock tests, practice papers and previous year question papers.
- Stay updated with current affairs.
- Revise on a daily basis.
- Reading and writing play a crucial role in your IBPS Clerk Preparation. Read as much as you can. An individual needs to increase his or her reading speed. The English Language section, section requires a lot of reading.
- A student can achieve good reading speed by reading different English Newspapers daily and can mark and note upon the new word you have come across, or points about an important event. This reading should be performed on a daily basis.
- For the grammar section we have Para jumbles, fill in the blanks, find error etc for this basic grammar rules should be clear and grammar rules should be strictly followed.
- Start off with easy chapters and their questions and slowly, move on to more difficult and advanced chapters and their questions. Revision of questions you find difficult to answer is a must.
- Focus on learning the shortcut tips and tricks formulas which will help in increasing efficiency and reducing time input.
- For logical reasoning understanding the logic behind the approach of the solution is most important when the logic is clear it means that there’s nothing left in the question.
- The logical section demands regular practice of different kinds of patterns and arrangements that will help you broaden your visibility to capture the pattern that is considered.
- Understanding the logic and developing good logic skills is the key point for this section.
Check the link for detailed information about the exam: