The IBPS Clerk Mains Examination for 2018-19 is over and most of candidates who have written the examination or who are going to write the exam next year are eager to find out the detailed review of the paper. Here, we are going to bring to you the detailed exam review for the IBPS Clerk Mains Examination held on 20th January 2019.
Before going into the detailed review, let us see the exam pattern:
| Sections | No of Questions | Marks Allotted | Time Allotted |
| General / Financial Awareness | 50 | 50 | 35 minutes |
| General English | 40 | 40 | 35 minutes |
| Reasoning Ability and Computer Knowledge | 50 | 60 | 45 minutes |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 50 | 50 | 45 minutes |
| Total | 190 | 200 | 160 minutes |
So, there were a total of 190 questions in the paper held today and the total time allotted was 2 hours and 40 minutes. You were supposed to finish a particular section within the time limit given for that particular section. Once you are done with one section and the time limit for that section is over, you cannot go back to that particular section later.
Now, coming to the overall level of the paper today, it can be said to be MODERATE overall.
General / Financial Awareness
There were 50 questions in this section and majority of the questions were from the current affairs section. The current affairs questions covered the months from July 2018 to January 2019. The candidates who prepared the last six months current affairs and also covered the January Month CA would do well in this section. Apart from current affairs questions, there were few questions from the Banking Awareness Section and the rest were from Static GK portion of the syllabus.
General English
As always, this section proved to be the nemesis for most of the candidates. The questions were pretty difficult considering the change in the pattern in the questions.
| Topic | No of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| Reading Comprehension (3 passages were given) | 15 | Moderate |
| Word Replacement | 5 | Difficult |
| Word Usage | 5 | Moderate |
| Sentence Connectors | 5 | Moderate |
| Double Fillers (Two columns A and B were given and you had to find the suitable words) | 5 | Difficult |
| Sentence Rearrangement | 5 | Moderate |
| Total | 40 | Moderate |
However, if you are strong in your basics of English, you need not worry. Considering ample time given to finish this section, you should not find time as a constraint for your performance. The mantra was to keep calm and believe in your knowledge.
Reasoning Ability and Computer Aptitude
This section was mainly dominated by puzzles and seating arrangement questions and the main objective was to know when to let a puzzle go. Unless you can decide this, it becomes very difficult to score in this section.
| Topics | No of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| Seating Arrangements and Puzzles | 25 | Moderate / Difficult (Some of the puzzles were time consuming and complicated. These covered floor based puzzle, month based puzzle, year based puzzle etc.) |
| Direction Test | 4 | Moderate |
| Alphabet | 2 | Easy |
| Inequality | 3 | Easy |
| Logical Reasoning | 6 | Moderate (However, this is the most confusing of all given the subjective nature of the questions) |
| Machine Input-Output | 4 | Moderate |
| Coding and Decoding | 3 | Moderate |
| Syllogism | 3 | Easy |
| Total | 50 | Moderate (Though a lot of questions were pretty easy, it is being given as moderate due to the fact that puzzles were not cakewalk) |
Quantitative Aptitude
The level of questions was moderate for this section with data interpretation leading the pack of questions. Other questions were also of moderate difficulty level. However, given that the time was limited, practice before the exam held the key for speed and accuracy in this section.
| Topics | No of Questions | Difficulty Level |
| Data Interpretation (It included 4 sets of DI with the caselet included in it. Other than that, there were regular questions from bar graph, pie chart etc.) | 20 | Moderate |
| Data Sufficiency | 5 | Moderate |
| Quantity 1 and Quantity 2 | 5 | Moderate |
| Quadratic Equation | 5 | Moderate |
| Arithmetic Problems | 15 | Moderate |
| Total | 50 | Moderate |
The questions in this section were not complicated but at times, they were a bit lengthy, though it was not something unexpected.
Now, coming to the number of safe attempts in this paper, it is not possible to pinpoint an exact figure given the fact that clerk mains cut-off will be state-wise. It will vary a lot from one state to the other, depending on the number of candidates appeared and the total number of vacancy available in that particular state. For the sake of approximation, we are providing an average number of attempts that can land you the job in any state. However, please remember that we are here giving the number of questions that need to be correctly attempted in order to get the job.
| Section | Safe Attempts |
| General / Financial Awareness | 32-35 |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 33-37 |
| Reasoning Ability and Computer Aptitude | 30-34 |
| General English | 28-32 |
| Total | 123-138 |
Final Cut off
Regarding the final cut off, you may just make small alterations of +/- 5 from the given safe number of attempts in the examination. Since there is no interview in the exam after this and only Language Proficiency Test will be there, it is expected that cut-off will be on the higher side. If your state has less vacancy, you may expect a considerable spike in the cut off.
However, since the paper is over and there is nothing you can do now about the examination, please stop speculating about the results and focus on the next examination. Most of you would be writing your IBPS SO Mains also in a few weeks and don’t lose your focus from that.
All the Best!!
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