My journey through RBI Grade B selection process - General (DR) - Part 1

As committed by me in my previous post and to answer the queries I often receive about RBI-Grade B General, I would outline my experience of the selection procedure and my advice for future aspirants.

To those interested to read about DEPR, can view my post on the same here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/my-journey-through-rbi-grade-b-selection-process-shobhit-goel/?trackingId=9F4j4FJ3c813T1AKpi3XDQ%3D%3D

In this post, I would be outlining Phase 1 of the selection scheme. I would pen my experience of Phase 2 and Interview stage in the next post.

Phase 1

As opposed to DEPR, on the General side, Phase 1 is qualifying as the marks don’t count towards the final selection. However, I consider Phase 1 to be the biggest hurdle.

The pattern of the paper is 200 single-choice objective questions in 120 mins. The break-up is as follows:

• English: 30 questions
• Quantitative Aptitude: 30 questions
• Logical Reasoning: 60 questions
• General Awareness: 80 questions

With 200 questions in 120 minutes, speed and accuracy are of paramount importance.

Sectional limits and cut-offs

In the past 2 years, a sectional cut-off and sectional time limit too has been introduced, which has added to the dynamic.

However, seeing the sectional time limit, conversing with people who have given the exam in this format, and based on my experience, I actually believe sectional limit simplifies things. It ends the worry of spending too much time on a particular section. It also even outs the playing field, by preventing people from playing to just their strengths and rather forces upon an all-round approach.

Tips for each section

English

• Questions are a mix of direct vocabulary questions, grammatical error finding, sentence and phrase re-arrangement, and comprehension type of questions.
• It is a lengthy and time-consuming section especially with phrase re-arrangement and comprehension type questions.
• However, questions on direct conversion from active to passive voice or direct to indirect speech are not much of a flavor for Grade B.

Reading an English daily especially the op-ed sections should be of help especially with reading speed and comprehension type of questions

Wren & Martin is the gold standard for English grammar, so revise the basic rules related to verbs, tenses, prepositions, phrases for it.

General Awareness

This is the most important section for Grade B and your performance here usually determines whether or not you will qualify. While there are 80 questions, where you either know the answer or don’t, thus requiring less time and lower chances of any silly errors.

A few pointers

1. Unlike UPSC which has built a reputation of questions from any obscure op-ed a few years ago or extremely tangential questions to the issues in news, RBI keeps it simple
2. Most of the questions have a direct link to events that were in news in the past 1 year. This is in line with the name of the section which is General Awareness.
3. Further, you can expect some questions from the sports and awards section and a few from banking and finance related news.
4. Reading a newspaper on regular basis at least for 6 months prior to the exam is really helpful. However, in line with the points above, you need to give a broad reading instead of an in-depth analysis of a particular op-ed.
5. I personally would suggest either following the PIB podcast on their app or a nightly news program (30 mins) in DD News, RSTV. The advantages of this are:

• Audio-visual medium helps improve retention
• It can be a time-saver as the podcast or programs can be seen as part of the daily routine
• These programs cover the major news of the day in a concise way
• More important news gets covered repeatedly thereby automatically increasing their retention

You can supplement these with a broad reading of current affairs material put out by any major coaching institute. However, solely relying on these may not be the most effective strategy as:

• Tough to retain bucket loads of information
• Tough to differentiate between highly important news events and obscure ones

Logical Reasoning and Quantitative Aptitude

A word of caution to USPC aspirants: The advanced difficulty level of questions and the limited time available makes it an entirely different ball game as opposed to CSAT. Further, here you have to maximize your score instead of clearing a minimum qualifying cut-off.

Material

CAT material from a good coaching institute can be a good source for practicing and picking up some tips and pointers for these two sections.

Overall Tips

The motto for clearing Phase 1 should be Practice, Practice, and Practice. Ideally, your preparation especially for Phase 1 should be cornered around mock tests.

You need to identify which sections you are struggling with and even the types of questions you are:

• Repeatedly getting wrong.
• Not able to attempt.
• Taking too much time.

From my personal experience, I struggled with sectional time distribution and struggled with speed as I hadn’t attempted any mock tests. The things which saved me were the practice of doing these kinds of tests for a good part of my life starting from NTSE in school days to helping my batchmates with CAT and placement tests during my last year at IIT Kharagpur.

Time-requirement

Your Phase 1 preparation should not take more than 2 hrs daily:

• 30 minutes podcast/news on TV
• 45 mins for the newspaper (preferably an English daily)
• 15 mins for solving some daily questions
• 30 mins for one topic of English/GA/Quant/LA
• Try to attempt 1 mock test every week (extra 3 hours to give a test and its analysis).