SBI PO QUANTITATIVE APTITUDE PRACTICE TIPS AND TRICKS
SBI PO Prelims is the first hurdle to becoming a Probationary Officer with the top bank in the country. There is tough competition up ahead. In order to make it to one of the 2000+ vacancies, you need to make sure that your basic preparation of the Main 3 subjects is up to the mark, right from the Prelims preparation. The most time consuming of the Main 3 subjects is Math. This is a subject that requires some short tricks to practice each section. With Prelims around the corner, here is how you can prepare Math for SBI PO 2017 in 1 Month!
We will be providing important pointers about the Prelims Exam first.Quantitative Aptitude is one of the most important sections of SBI or any other recruitment exam. Most of the candidates unable to crack SBI and other bank exams because they are unable to qualify sectional cutoffs and most of the candidates fail because they are unable to clear cutoff in this section. Today we will provide study plan, please read it carefully, you will find interesting tips and shortcuts to score high in this Quant section.
We have brought you the much awaited Tips to crack Quantitative Aptitude Section. Quantitative Aptitude is considered to be the first adversary of almost every Banking Aspirant or candidate (if it is not the case with you, trust us, we are so glad for you). In many ways, this is a good thing. If you focus your studies only on these areas, it is possible that you can score very highly on the maths section. On the other hand, most other exams will have about 40% of the questions on Data Interpretation and the rest on other maths topics such as:
(a) Interest
(b) Sequences
(c) Equations
(d) Probability / Permutations and Combinations
(e) Profit and Loss
(f) Geometry
(g) Speed/Time/Work/Age Problems
(h) Indices/Powers/Roots
1. Aptitude Section:- Contains 35 Questions
Data Interpretation
This part is the decision maker in this exam. There will be at least 3 sets, each containing 5 questions. Difficultly level of questions remains high. Normally double diagram questions are asked in which you need to extract data from diagram and use it extract information from another. Go to DI series here
I started Data interpretation series here. In this series I shared 8 sets with difficulty level at par current exams trend.
Simplifications is a matter of past for PO level exams.
Many questions are repeated. Don't practice 3-4 years old exams. Try to find and solve model question papers.
Solve at least 7-8 sectional papers before appearing for exam, find out how much time is ideal.
Try to use estimates and tricks. It's near to impossible to attempt 200 questions within 120 minutes. You have already shared many tricks in my previous posts
2. SELECT THE RIGHT QUESTIONS:
Spend a few seconds browsing through the section. Look for easy/medium level questions or questions that suit your strength. Solve a problem ONLY if you can do it quickly. For example, if you get a compound interest problem, you may be able to solve it. But I doubt you will be able to solve it in under 3 minutes, unless you are very strong in the topic and can do quick calculations. It might be better to solve a number operation question and a simple probability question IN THE SAME TIME. Always keep your target in mind. If you think you need to get 30 or 35 right, and then try to use this to your advantage. You can leave some of the most difficult questions and focus on your strengths.
3. Simple and Scoring Questions:-
Start your aptitude with these questions. These questions are commonly very easy to solve,require less time and you can easily get high accuracy. There are around 16-18 questions from this category.
Data Insufficiency (one of the DI Sets )
Simplification
Arithmetic Topics : Questions on Ages, Percentage, Averages, S.I / C.I, Profit & Loss, Ratio & Proportions.
4. Time taken Questions
Questions in this topic are complex/difficult than above and may require more time to solve these questions. These are time consuming as well as difficult question we need to solve this question using some short or easy trick. Attempt them after solving first category questions.
Some of the questions are complex and tricky. Accuracy will depend on amount of practice done before exam. The number of questions will be around 11-16 Questions from this category.
Probability
Quadratic Equations
Arithmetic Topics : Mixture and allegations , Time Speed, Time and Work and Distance
Another DI Set
Number Series
For those students who just want to clear sectional cut offs solving first category questions with a few question from second will be complete but then you will need to solve excellent number of question in both English and Reasoning to clear the overall cutoff.
5. Topic wise Tips
Data Interpretation: If the answers are numbers not close to each other, then you do not need to do the exact calculations. You can round off the numbers and do approximate calculations and select the answer closest to the answer you calculated. No other planning can beat the option elimination technique in DI section. Try to avoid doing long calculations as in an exam that requirement aspirants to solve 100 questions in 60 minutes; you may end up wasting and not investing your time by doing long calculations. If you are good with calculations and approximation techniques, percentage, ratio & proportion and option elimination technique - these questions are very easily to solve.
Quadratic Equations - Revising your high school mathematics book on factorization can assist you finding the roots of the quadratic equations faster.
6. GUESS:
Random guessing should not be done, because you lose ¼ mark for every wrong answer. But if you can eliminate 2 or 3 choices, THEN DEFINITELY GUESS. The probability of getting it right is 1/3 or 1/2, instead of 1/5. Many times you can eliminate options that are too big or too small. So even you cannot solve the problem, guess. You have a good chance of getting it right.
7. General Mistakes to Avoid:
Not Reading Questions Completely, In Quant section there is a most common mistake made by students. In hurry to solve questions faster, they don't read the questions clearly and end up making mistakes. This problem can cause obstruction as even after solving the question methodically, you will not get the compatible option. And then, it becomes a forceful task to identify as to where you doing wrong. Hence, read twice & carefully before you go ahead and start solving.
8. Avoid Risky Shortcuts
You may be of the angle that the whole point of speed test is to solving question quick possible then why avoid shortcuts. If you have practiced a particular shortcut or trick on lot many questions during your preparation then go ahead. But, if you have just read little shortcut or any other trick during last time of your preparation, avoid using it in the exam as you do not know the conditions and situation in which this particular shortcut can be applied. Solve the question using conventional way even if it takes more time.
