IBPS Clerk Main Exam 2018 was held on January 20, 2019. A total of 190 questions had to be answered in 160 minutes. There were 4 sections namely, General/Financial Awareness, General English, Reasoning Ability & Computer Aptitude and Quantitative Aptitude. Except General English, the rest of the objective questions were in bilingual format that is, in English and Hindi. Each incorrect answer will reduce the score by 1/4th marks assigned to the respective question.
The detailed break-up of IBPS Clerk Main Exam 2018 is as follows:
| Section | Total Questions |
Total Marks |
Level of Difficulty |
Good Attempts |
Time Taken (In Minutes) |
General/Financial Awareness |
50 |
50 |
Easy to moderate |
32-35 |
35 |
General English |
40 |
40 |
Moderate-Difficult |
30-32 |
35 |
Reasoning Ability & Computer Aptitude |
50 |
60 |
Moderate to difficult |
27-30 |
45 |
Quantitative Aptitude |
50 |
50 |
Moderate |
30-35 |
45 |
Total |
190 |
200 |
Moderate |
119-132 |
160 |
General/Financial Awareness:
Most of the questions came from the Banking Awareness, Financial Awareness and Current Affairs (Maximum questions were from last 6 months i.e. from July 2018 to January 2019) sections. There were some questions from the static section of General Awareness. 3-4 questions were from banking awareness. The overall difficulty of this section was easy to moderate.
Some questions were like: River based-1 Q., Bank/Chairman-1 Q., Chipko Andolan- 1 Q., Jan Dhan Yojana-1 Q. etc.
General English:
Topic |
Number of questions |
Level of difficulty |
Reading Comprehension (3 RCs-Topics were Diet, Wildlife Conservation, and Drinking Water) |
5 + 4 + 4 |
Moderate-Difficult |
Cloze Test |
7 |
Moderate |
Spot the error-4 bold words A, B, C, D were given. Interchange the words. Options were like A-B, D –B & B-C etc. |
5 |
Moderate |
Fill in the Blanks (Double FIB)-3 options A, B, C were given. Options were like A, B; C, D; etc. |
5 |
Moderate |
Parajumbles/Sentence Rearrangement-out of 5 sentences, 5th sentence was fixed. |
5 |
Moderate |
Sentence Connection/Connectors |
5 |
Moderate |
There were a total of 3 sets of Reading Comprehension. The overall difficulty level of this section was moderate to difficult.
Reasoning Ability & Computer Aptitude:
| Topic | Number of Questions |
Level of difficulty |
AR (Circular Seating Arrangement) |
5 |
Moderate- Difficult |
AR (Blood relation based) |
5 |
Moderate- Difficult |
AR (Data Arrangement-Box based) |
5 |
Moderate- Difficult |
AR (Data Arrangement - date based) |
5 |
Moderate- Difficult |
AR (Data Arrangement - year based) |
5 |
Moderate- Difficult |
Direction-coding based set |
5 |
Moderate |
Input-output |
2 |
Easy |
Mathematical Inequalities |
3 |
Easy |
Coding-Decoding |
3 |
Easy |
Linear Arrangement |
1 |
Easy-Moderate |
Statement-Assumption |
3 |
Moderate |
Strong and Weak Arguments |
2 |
Moderate |
Statement-Assertion |
1 |
Moderate |
Alphabet based |
2 |
Easy-Moderate |
Syllogism |
3 |
Easy |
There was no question from Computer Aptitude. There were 5 sets of seating arrangement and data arrangement. Level of difficulty of this section was moderate to difficult.
Quantitative Aptitude:
| Topic | Number of questions |
Level of difficulty |
Data Interpretation (Table) |
5 |
Moderate-Difficult |
Data Interpretation (Bar Graph) |
5 |
Moderate-Difficult |
Data Interpretation (Pie Chart) |
5 |
Moderate-Difficult |
Data Interpretation (Caselet) |
5 |
Moderate-Difficult |
Data Sufficiency - |
5 |
Moderate |
Comparison of quantities: Quantity I and Quantity II |
5 |
Moderate |
Comparison of variables: Quadratic Equations |
5 |
Easy |
Time and Work |
1 |
Moderate |
Probability |
1 |
Moderate |
Partnership |
1 |
Moderate |
Profit, Loss and Discount |
1 |
Moderate |
Miscellaneous (Quant based) |
11 |
Moderate |
There were 4 sets of Data Interpretation. Overall difficulty level of this section was 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