SBI PO 2017 : Section Wise Strategy | Reasoning Ability

SBI PO notification is out and all you are preparing for your dream job as a probationary officer in the largest bank in the country. In this journey from being a fresher to an officer, we are bringing to you the detailed strategy that will help you prepare for this examination.

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Reasoning Ability: What are the topics that I should prepare?

This is a time-consuming section in almost all the banking examinations and this is one of the sections where you stand to score more with continuous practice of quality questions more than reading rules and regulations. The questions are actually logical in nature as the name suggests but it is also true that you need to know the basics of the questions asked in this section such as syllogism questions or ranking questions or shortcuts for coding-decoding questions etc.              

• Puzzles: As the name suggests, this section is going to cost you more than it is going to give you in the examination. You are going to get puzzled a lot during your interactive session of these questions. You are supposed to make every piece of information given in the questions fall into place so that you get the answers to your questions. Be prepared for serious head scratching during the examination in these puzzles questions. 

• Input Output questions: These are common questions in case of reasoning ability section in banking exams. You are supposed to arrange the steps in order to get the output from the input provided in the question. 

• Coding Decoding questions: Again a common brand of questions where you are supposed to decode the codes given. Simply you are required to get to the bottom by your logic and get the answers to your questions. 

• Data Sufficiency: In these questions, you are required to find the option which is right in the context of a given set of information and the answer required from that given set. These are also common questions in the banking examination reasoning section. 

• Syllogism questions: Well, what more to say about these types of questions? All of you know about this and the Venn diagrams that you need to draw once you see this type of questions in the paper. You are supposed to pick up the right conclusion from the given information whereas these days, questions often come in the form of conclusions and you are required to find the right statements from the given options. This is indeed time-consuming since you need to draw more than one diagram in these questions. 

• Logical Reasoning Questions: This includes questions from statement argument, statement assumption, reason and consequences etc. Questions are mostly logical in nature and your reading and comprehension ability will decide your fate in this section. 

• Miscellaneous questions: Apart from the major head off questions that have been already discussed above, you may face questions from ranking, direction sense, conditional statements etc. These are common types of questions asked in banking examinations. You may be asked to determine the ranking of a person standing in a queue or blood relation of a person on the basis of a family tree or the direction of a person after certain changes in directions etc.

Reasoning Ability: Master Strategy to Crack it                  

Your practice will make way for your marks in the reasoning section. The following things will help you score well in this examination:

• Learning basics should be very strong: As the name suggests, basics should be very strong in the case of any and every subject. Assume there is not very much to learn regarding the topics from which questions come in this section, the material that is there should be covered so that you can build on that in case the questions are way too difficult or unique in nature. 

• Practice is the only key here: This is the most important thing regarding this section since you need to sharpen your accuracy and speed in this section to score more. The calculations and assumptions should be made in your mind itself. That should be the level of your practice. Remember you are supposed to crack puzzles, more and more of them, and the time is limited and there is always a chance of struggling with one puzzle and missing on the other questions. You need to learn the extent to which you should go for a particular puzzle so that you do not get too involved in one puzzle only. Your practice leads you to that ability to take a decision regarding leaving or attempting a question. 

• CAT books should be referred: Like in English section, CAT books will help you a long way in SBI examination in reasoning section as well. But for reasoning, you should restrict it to puzzles and logical reasoning questions only. For other questions, basic reasoning books for banking examinations will do. Practice as many puzzles as you can so that you can devise a pattern in the puzzles and device your own unique shortcut to crack the difficult puzzles. 

• Time Table for preparation: You February month should be towards finishing the theory part of various chapters in reasoning with a revision of the topics. After that, the whole March month should be devoted towards making intensive practice, especially for puzzles. In April, your sole focus should be on taking as many quality mock tests as possible before you sit for the actual examination.

Reasoning section is a scoring one given the fact that you will understand the right and wrong answers instantly for most of the questions though logical reasoning questions are not sure shot ones. However, marks can be scored in this section with meticulous practice for the rest of the time. With puzzles ruling the section, try to solve puzzles quickly and practice is, again and again, the only way to solve the puzzles. So, start living in puzzles and sleeping in puzzles for the next two months and grab that job of a PO in SBI, yes, the brand says everything about it. Do we need to say more?

All the best!!