As Railway Recruitment Board (RRB) exam 2016 draws near, candidates have entered into the final lap of their preparation. It is now crucial to make the most of the limited time left and to do that extra bit needed to crack the exam.
Pattern of the RRB exam
The exam will have four sections: General Awareness, Arithmetic, General Intelligence and Reasoning.
It will be a computer-based 100 mark exam of 90 minutes duration.
There will be negative marking for wrong answers. In case, of an incorrect answer, 1/3rd of the marks allotted to that question will be deducted.
Tips to follow
The tips mentioned below, if followed carefully, will definitely improve your performance and help you score some valuable marks.
Revise the formulae related to arithmetic (quantitative aptitude) section. The 10 most important topics you need to work on are:
(i) percentages (ii) time and work (iii) time, speed and distance (iv) simple interest and compound interest (v) data analysis and interpretation (vi) profit and loss (vii) ratio and proportion (viii) mixture and alligation (ix) averages (x) problems on ages.
Go through the significant national and international news of the last six months. Special emphasis must be given to the events of the current year such as the railway budget and the union budget.
Brush up the shortcuts and tricks for simplifying lengthy calculations. Memorising the values of common squares, cubes, square roots and cube roots will be of great help.
Solve a couple of past years question papers. It will give you much better clarity of the difficulty level of questions asked in the exam.
Attempt at least one or two online tests before you appear on the final exam. It is especially important if you have not appeared in an online aptitude test before.
Regarding the general intelligence and reasoning part, practice a good number of problems on topics such as: Analogy and classification, direction test, series, coding-decoding, blood relations and calendar.
Five important Dos/Don’ts
1) Get adequate sleep on the night before the exam so that you wake up fresh.
2) Before the D-day arrives, visit the exam centre once so that you are familiar with the location.
3) On the day of the exam, make sure to leave your premises early in order to reach the exam centre comfortably.
4) While attempting the exam, don’t indulge in guesswork because the level of negative marking is quite high.
5) Keep your admit card and all the relevant documents handy for inspection at the exam centre.
Finally, if you put your best foot forward and have faith in yourself then cracking the exam is definitely within your reach. Remember that, with a positive mindset even a difficult task becomes easier.
