Today was the third day of the IBPS Clerk Preliminary Exam 2018. Spanning a period of one week (ending December 15, 2018), the exam is being conducted in four time slots: 2 each in the morning and evening.
A total of 100 questions had to be answered in 60 minutes. All the sections, except English Language, were available in both English and Hindi. Every correct answer will fetch 1 mark, while every incorrect answer will reduce the score by 0.25. This year there is sectional timing of 20 minutes.
The detailed break-up of IBPS Clerk Preliminary Exam 2018 is as follows:
| Section | Total Questions | Level of difficulty | Good Attempts | Time taken (in minutes) |
| English Language | 30 | Easy- Moderate | 21- 23 | 20 |
| Reasoning Ability | 35 | Easy-Moderate | 27-30 | 20 |
| Numerical Ability | 35 | Easy-Moderate | 22-25 | 20 |
| Total | 100 | Easy-Moderate | 72-78 | 60 |
Note: Section wise and overall cut-offs are not uniform for all states.
| Topic | Number of questions | Level of difficulty |
| Reading Comprehension – based on Environment and Animal Behaviour. (There were two questions based on synonyms.) | 6 | Moderate |
| Inappropriate Usage (wrong spelled words) | 5 | Easy |
| Fill in the blanks (Single Filler) | 5 | Moderate |
| Match the statements from Column 1 with Column 2 | 4 | Easy-Moderate |
| Parajumbles/Sentence Rearrangement | 5 | Moderate |
| Cloze Test | 5 | Easy |
There was one set of Reading Comprehension with 6 questions out of which 2 questions were based on synonyms. The overall difficulty level of this section was easy to moderate.
| Topic | Number of questions | Level of Difficulty |
| AR (Seating Arrangement – uncertain number of people) | 5 | Moderate |
| AR (Linear Seating Arrangement – Single row based – 10 persons) | 5 | Moderate |
| AR (Linear Seating Arrangement – 2 parallel rows - facing north/south - 5 people each side, 10 people) | 5 | Moderate |
| Coding-Decoding | 5 | Difficult |
| Mathematical Inequalities | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Direction – set based | 3 | Easy-Moderate |
| Alphabet based – The given word was COLUMBO. | 1 | Easy |
| Syllogism | 3 | Easy-Moderate |
| Miscellaneous | 3 | Easy-Moderate |
There were three sets of five questions each from Seating Arrangement and Data Arrangement. The overall difficulty level of this section was easy to moderate.
| Topic | Number of questions | Level of Difficulty |
| Data Interpretation (Bar Graph based) | 5 | Easy-Moderate |
| Simplification/Approximation | 10 | Easy |
| Number Series (Wrong number based) | 5 | Easy |
| Miscellaneous (Quant based word problems - Age based, Ratio and Proportion, Average, Time and work, SI/CI, Percentage, etc.) | 15 | Moderate |
There was one set of five questions from Data Interpretation (Bar Graph based). The overall difficulty level of this section was easy to moderate.
Disclaimer: All information on cut-offs, analysis, answer key and scores are based on independent analysis and evaluation made by Career Launcher. We do not take responsibility for any decision that might be taken, based on this information.
All the best!!
Team CL