IBPS Clerk exam is one of the most awaited exams for graduates who wish to make a career in the banking sector. It is conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) every year. The preliminary exam is the primary entrance to pass the candidates for the mains exam. Once you’ve cleared the preliminary exam, you will be called for the mains exam. Both of these exams are objective types and conducted online.
The IBPS clerk mains syllabus is lengthier than the preliminary exam and has more weightage too. However, just like the prelims, it has sectional timing and fixed marks. Preparing for the mains should be different as the difficulty level for Mains is much higher than the pre-exam.
You must know about the IBPS Clerk Mains Syllabus, marks, and sectional timing to devise a strategy to ace the IBPS mains exam.
The IBPS clerk mains examination comprises four sections, which are
| Section | Questions | Marks | Duration |
| General/Financial Awareness | 50 | 50 | 35 minutes |
| General English | 40 | 40 | 35 minutes |
| Computer Knowledge & Reasoning Ability | 50 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 50 | 50 | 45 minutes |
| Total | 190 | 200 | 160 minutes |
Now, take a look at these sections in detail.
General/Financial Awareness– This section is the most scoring, and you should start preparing for this from the beginning of your exam. This paper tests your general knowledge, and six to eight months of current affairs are asked. You have to learn about all the government schemes, sports events, awards, important meetings and events, banking news, International events, and other important news.
You should also prepare for static GK and know about India’s financial and Indian banking system, budget, monetary plans of the government, regulatory bodies, RBI, financial system, international organizations.
English Language– If you prepare well, you can score well in the English section. Continue reading the newspaper and other stuff to improve your reading skills, vocabulary, and comprehension. It will help you tackle the reading comprehension section, which is almost 30-40 percent of the paper.
Other topics you need to prepare are fill in the blanks, sentence completion, cloze test, antonym and synonym, error detection, phrase replacement, para jumbles, inference, and connectors.
Reasoning & Computer Aptitude – The reasoning section contains questions on alphanumeric series, syllogism, blood relations, month-based puzzle, days-based puzzle, box-based puzzle, row-based puzzle, distance and direction, verbal reasoning, figure series, seating arrangements, order and ranking, coding-decoding, input-output, inequalities.
You need to focus on the puzzles more as the weightage of puzzles is more. You will also find some basic computer knowledge questions, keyboard shortcuts, computer hardware & software, internet & networking, Microsoft office, abbreviations, etc., under the computer aptitude section.
Quantitative Aptitude – The quants section will have questions from number series, quadratic equations, data interpretation (pie chart, bar graph, tabular & line chart), approximation, simplification, profit and loss, ratio and proportion, averages, percentages, data sufficiency, mensuration, simple interest, and compound interest, probability, permutation and combination, problem on ages, speed, distance and time, work, time and wages, boats and stream, pipes and cisterns.
Now when you have a detailed IBPS clerk mains syllabus, you can start with your preparation. Remember that each section has a sectional timing. All the sections, except English, are bilingual, which means you can attempt them in either English or Hindi. There is a penalty for incorrect answers too. For every incorrect answer, 0.25 marks will be deducted.