First and foremost, you must have a clear understanding of the SBI PO exam pattern. SBI PO Prelims exam would consist of 100 questions with 20 minutes for each section. It would comprise of the following sections -
- English Language - 30 Questions
- Reasoning Ability - 35 Questions
- Quantitative Aptitude - 35 Questions
There is also a penalty of 0.25 marks for every incorrect answer. So you must attempt questions with utmost accuracy since you cannot afford to lose marks for the questions that you have answered correctly. There is no sectional cutoff in SBI PO Prelims. You can see the SBI PO previous year's question paper for a better idea.
English Preparation Strategy for SBI PO 2022
Let us first have a look at the questions that were asked in the English Language section in SBI PO Prelims Exam last year -
Topic Name | Number of Questions Asked |
Reading Comprehension | 7-10 |
Cloze Test | 5-6 |
Match the column | 4-5 |
Fillers | 5-6 |
Error Spotting/Sentence Correction/Sentence Improvements | 5-6 |
Phrase Replacement | 5-6 |
Sentence Rearrangement/Parajumble | 5-6 |
Sentence Connector | 3-4 |
Sentence Completion | 3-4 |
Sentence Formation | 2-3 |
- The overall level of this section was Moderate to Difficult.
- Don't forget to check the SBI PO cut-off for the previous year to get a better idea.
Topic-wise Preparation Strategy
Two crucial factors that you need to take care of while preparing English Section are -
- Vocabulary
- Grammar
If you manage to have a good hold over these parameters, attempting questions of the English Language Section becomes comparatively easy.
Vocabulary -
- This parameter is important for any bank exam since you come across numerous words in the questions and if you do not understand what they mean, you cannot expect to attempt them correctly.
- Make sure that you read at least 2-3 articles from different newspapers regularly. You can use The Hindu, Economic Times, etc. for this. Try to look up the meaning of the new words that you come across in the article.
- You can also refer to ‘Word Power made easy by Norman Lewis to improve your vocabulary section.
- For a detailed description of vocabulary improving tips, must-read here 'Most Important Tips to improve vocabulary for bank exams'.
- You can go through our series 'Shape up of your vocabulary' to work upon your vocabulary daily.
- Root words are one of the easiest ways to enhance your vocabulary. Understand and learn important Root words in our series 'Roots of English'.
Grammar -
- Having a clear understanding of the grammar rules is a must for the exam.
- This will help you with numerous questions, especially Spotting errors.
- You can go through Objective General English by S.P. Bakshi and Grammar book by Wren and Martin for this purpose.
- To learn and understand important Grammar rules easily, you can refer to our Grammar Scholar Series.
Some important grammar tips to help you all in the upcoming exam -
| S. No. | Rules |
| 1. | The verb in a sentence must be by the subject of the same sentence. A singular subject takes up a singular verb, similarly, a plural subject takes up a plural verb. |
| 2. | In case, 2 or more subjects are connected with the help of ‘and’, then usually a plural verb is used with them. |
| 3. | When 2 singular subjects are connected with the help of ‘either/or’ or ‘neither/nor’, then they usually take a singular verb. If one of the subjects in the sentence is plural, then the verb will also be plural. |
| 4. | In case, the subject is followed by certain words like, ‘besides’, ‘not’, ‘as well as’, ’along with’ etc, then the singular verb of the sentence will follow a singular subject. |
| 5. | In the case of sentences that start with ‘Each’, ‘Everyone’ and ‘Anyone’, the subject will have a singular verb. |
| 6. | ‘I’ and ‘Me’ are used differently- Both of them are 1st person singular pronouns. The difference is, 'I' is a Subject Pronoun while 'me' is an Object Pronoun. |
| 7. | Do not forget to look up the error of repetition, also known as redundancy. |
| 8. | Modifier-related errors - Ensure that the participle in the sentence is not without the subject. |
| 9. | The difference in the use of few and less - Few is used for countable nouns whereas Less is used for uncountable nouns. |
Try to keep following things in mind while solving questions of the topics mentioned below -
- Reading Comprehension - While solving Reading Comprehension questions, try to first have a look at 1-2 questions and then proceed with the passage. This approach will help you mark out the answers easily.
- Cloze Test - While attempting a Cloze test, if you feel stuck on any blank, leave it out and move on to the next one. Once you are done with it, try to go through the previous blank. This might help since all the sentences of the passage are logically connected.
- Para jumbles - While solving Para jumbles, first have a glance at the given sentences to understand the gist of the paragraph. And, then look for the independent sentence, which usually is the first sentence of the paragraph.
- Spotting Error/Sentence Improvement - Attempting Spotting Errors or Sentence Improvement-based questions is comparatively easy if you have a clear understanding of all the grammar rules and the sentence structure.
- Fill in the blanks/Double Fillers - In these questions, apply the elimination technique. Eliminate options one by one which cannot be suitable according to you. Choose that option that fits the blank without changing the sense/theme of the sentence.
Complete Preparation Material for English Section
Topic-wise Study Notes link:
S.No. | Topics |
1 | |
2 | |
3 | |
4 | |
5 | |
6 | |
7 | |
8 | |
9 | |
10 |
After understanding the concepts, practice quizzes here - English Language Quiz
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