By Rachel Dylan
The State Bank of India group has the largest banking network in India. Every year, the bank recruits probationary officers and employees for the clerical grade. SBI Clerk exams are tough, and the competition is intensive. According to the 2019 recruitment data, the SBI recruitment board received 16.6 lakhs of application for 8300 posts at the clerical level.
If you want to clear the exam with a good score, you need to have some exam preparation strategies. According to experts, downloading the SBI Clerk Prelims previous year question paper PDF and solving it should be part of your preparation strategy. Here are some ways in which previous year exam papers can help in your preparations.
Understand the Prelims Exam Pattern
To develop an aptitude for cracking the SBI Clerk Prelims exam, you need to understand the exam pattern. It will give you an edge and help you play by your strength. The previous year’s question papers give you a clear idea about the essential topics and their weightage. All this information can help you formulate a strategy for preparing for the exam and making your groundwork stronger.
Know the Important Topics
The topics covered in the competitive exams are vast. The Reasoning Ability and Quantitative aptitude sections have 35 questions each. Each question carries one mark. The English Language section has 30 questions for 30 marks. It can be difficult for any job aspirant to know about the topics covered in these three sections.
By reading SBI Clerk Prelims previous year’s question paper PDF, you can know what topics are covered in each section. The previous year’s paper can give you a contextual understanding of the topics and the type of questions asked. Reading the previous year’s paper will give you an idea about which topics have more questions. It will help you prepare for the exam accordingly.
Time Management
The questions in the Prelims exam are MCQs. You get one minute per question. If you take more time per question, you will not solve all questions that will reduce your score significantly. The result is you will not be shortlisted for the Mains exam.
Solving the previous year’s exam papers will help you determine how much time you take in solving each one. With more paper-solving practice, you will be able to think fast and solve one question in less than one minute.
Understand the Question Paper Format.
Before the Prelims exam, you need to know the format, nature, and type of questions asked. The questions might be MCQs or subjective. Depending on the type of questions, your answers will vary. You will need more time to write subjective answers.
If the questions are objective, you need a longer time to think. You need to have a strategy to ensure you answer maximum questions in all three sections in the Prelims exam.
To sum up, everyone knows lakhs of job aspirants appear for the SBI Clerk exam every year. Not everyone who passes the Prelims exam is allowed to appear in the Mains exam. The recruitment board shortlists candidates as per their Prelims score. Hence, you need to give your best in the Prelims exams that is only possible if you solve the previous year’s SBI Prelims exam papers
